What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 63665A of PE 0603203F. 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.
- Continue assessment and selection of surface sensing and sense-making capabilities of multi-modal surface target classification as appropriate; expand database of operationally relevant signatures, warfighter input, and previously acquired knowledge to select sensing phenomenology most capable of yielding novel capabilities. - Continue algorithm development of mission autonomy solutions as appropriate enabling the orchestration of unmanned airborne systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to maintain custody of critical surface targets with emphasis on the maritime environment; this includes the development of advanced analytics to forecast the behavior of operationally relevant surface targets. - Continue software and hardware integration and test in the systems integration laboratory/hardware integration laboratory. - Continue development of multi-platform live, virtual, and constructive testing and operational experimentation in relevant environments; refine the testing to focus on operationally relevant scenarios to determine novel capabilities. - Continue expansion of modeling, simulation, and analysis products to represent the maritime scenario of current interest enabling the necessary assessment of system design trades including weather and atmospheric impacts. - Continue to capture knowledge and design information using model-based system engineering; confirm best practices with current and potential customers to maximize the transition of knowledge and capability. - Continue hardware and software refinement to instantiate novel multi-modal, multi-platform sensing capabilities that meet identified needs; balance performance with cost, size, weight, power, and cooling and assess impact of these platform-imposed restrictions on the sensing's ability to perform in a highly contested environment. - Commence examination of mission/sensor coordination software and architectures, based on algorithms under development, to determine a candidate architecture for future multi-domain, maritime sensing capabilities.
FY 2027 decreased compared to FY 2026 by $0.730 million due to programmatic adjustments to the DAF Science and Technology portfolio. This reduction reflects a strategic realignment to optimize core research areas and improve resource efficiency
FY2026: the year under way
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.
- Continue assessment and selection of surface sensing and sense-making capabilities of multi-modal surface target classification as appropriate, based on operationally relevant signatures, warfighter input, sensing phenomenology, and previously acquired knowledge. Based on available information and warfighter needs, develop sensing technology (hardware and software). - Continue algorithm development of mission autonomy solutions as appropriate enabling the orchestration of unmanned airborne systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to maintain custody of critical surface targets with emphasis on the maritime environment. This includes the development of advanced analytics to forecast the behavior of operationally relevant surface targets. - Continue development of advanced analytics to forecast the behavior of surface targets. - Continue software and hardware integration and test in the Systems Integration Laboratory/Hardware Integration Laboratory. - Continue development of multi-platform Live, Virtual, and Constructive testing and operational experimentation in relevant environments. - Continue expansion of Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis products to represent the maritime scenario of current interest enabling the necessary assessment of system design trades. - Continue to capture knowledge and design information using Model Based System Engineering. - Commence hardware and software refinement to instantiate novel multi-modal, multi-platform sensing capabilities that meet identified needs. During development, balance performance with cost, size, weight, power, and cooling. Assess impact of these platform-imposed restrictions on the sensing's ability to perform in a highly contested environment.
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 | 10.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 24.3 |
| FY2027 | Request | 23.6 |
This activity is 35% of project 63665A's FY2027 request and 33% of PE 0603203F'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.
5 activities in project 63665A
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 project page.