What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 634920 of PE 0603211F. 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 development and integration of larger scale scramjet component technologies. - Activities include evaluating thrust performance, structural integrity, and operability to drive higher-performance propulsion solutions while enabling more affordable, durable, and reusable system designs. Continue technology maturation activities to investigate, develop, and demonstrate propulsion capabilities for durable, survivable hypersonic vehicles. - Activities include performing propulsion model predictions and validation testing, along with life-cycle and structural validation assessments, to enhance performance, affordable maintenance, and more durable, reusable system designs. Complete propulsion technology maturation activities for multi-mission cruiser concept to expand performance capabilities of high- speed systems. Activities include: - Completion of conceptual designs, validation of operational analyses against customer capability-based requirements informing critical technology development to enhance and balance performance, affordability, and reusability. - Deliver dual -mode ramjet engine designs and performance data from ground test campaigns resulting in a propulsion system capable of operating at mission-relevant trajectories. Commence development of multi-Mach capable high-speed propulsion inlet, nozzle, and engine components. - Activities include development of designs, modeling tools, propulsion system control strategies, hardware/ additive manufacturing, and high-speed ground testing. Commence integration of multi-Mach capable high-speed propulsion systems at platform scale. - Activities include analysis of system-level tradeoffs and sensitivities, high-speed propulsion system operational design, propulsion system control integration, and risk-mitigation testing. Commence development and analysis of thermal/control management systems and strategies for operating high-speed propulsion systems. - Activities include initial development of an integrated thermal/control modeling environment, integrated system evaluation methods, thermal-structural and heat exchange testing, and evaluation of thermal performance of fuel system architectures.
FY 2027 funding increased by 94.433 million due to the transfer of the High-Speed Propulsion Integration and Demonstration effort and associated funding within this Program Element from Project 634926 / High Speed Systems Integ & Demo to Project 634920 / Flight Vehicle Tech Integration (now called Aerospace Systems Integration and Demonstration). However, the overall funding for the High-Speed Propulsion Integration and Demonstration increased from FY 2026 by 77.889 million due to the development, integration, and thermal/control management strategies for multi-Mach capable high-speed propulsion systems that enable efficient, reliable operation across broad flight regimes.
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.
In FY 2025 and FY 2026, the High-Speed Propulsion Integration and Demonstration effort and funding were reported in Program Element 0603211F / Aerospace Technology Dev/Demo /Project 634926 / High Speed Systems Integ & Demo. FY 2025 funding was $9.262 million and FY 2026 funding is $16.544 million.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 0.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 0.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 94.4 |
This activity is 36% of project 634920's FY2027 request and 36% of PE 0603211F'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.
7 activities in project 634920
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.