What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 066 of PE 0603183D8Z. This is the budget justification's own description of work that has not happened yet — the one thing no other level of the budget carries.
FY 2027 base plans for the UCAH continues the path identified in the S&T roadmap and continues efforts towards flight experimentation for promising technologies. These funds will support projects selected from the FY 2026 UCAH project solicitation and continue those started in FY 2024, FY 2025, and FY 2026. Technologies will be matured and demonstrated in the areas of air breathing propulsion test capabilities, air breathing propulsion digital twin architectures, collaborative communications and networking, additive manufactured material properties, endothermic fuel applications, ceramic materials for reusable vehicles, and optics testing for sensor and seeker windows.
The increase of $15.579 million between FY 2026 and FY 2027 reflects funding towards flight test experimentation in support of the FY 2025 Grand Challenge project, application of existing technology developments toward more complex problems at higher classification levels, and increased consortium management costs.
FY2025–FY2026: what came before
Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.
FY 2026 base plans for the UCAH continues the path identified in the S&T roadmap and pursues flight experimentation for promising technologies. Projects include continuation of those started in FY 2023 and FY 2024, as well as new projects selected in FY 2025 through the annual UCAH project solicitation. In FY 2026, new research will explore advanced aerodynamics, novel propulsion systems, integration materials, high-speed aero-optics and non-kinetic interactions.
FY 2025 base plans for the UCAH are a continuation of the path identified in the S&T roadmap for FY 2024. UCAH will continue to execute research projects through the Consortium; in addition, the scope of the projects will be increased to focus more on workforce development and applied research as identified by the S&T roadmap.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 27.1 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 21.9 |
| FY2027 | Request | 37.5 |
This activity is 8.8% of project 066's FY2027 request and 8.8% of PE 0603183D8Z's. In the request year the activities under a project sum to it exactly; in the current year they under-cover it in about 9% of cases, so an activity's delta can legitimately exceed its parent's and the two must not be compared row to row.
11 activities in project 066
Every R-2A line of this project, largest FY2027 request first. Linked where the activity has enough of its own narrative to carry a page; the rest are shown in full on the program-element page.