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 testing of solid rocket motors relevant to defense needs for rapid and agile manufacturing, propulsion capability, high performance tactical demonstrations, and for use in missiles and rockets. - Activities include scale up toward flight-weight tests of tactical motors developed through additive manufacturing methods. Continue design and development of modeling and simulation tools that more fully describe the physical processes that occur during manufacture and/or operation of solid rocket motors, and that reduce predictive uncertainty in design and analysis - Activities include finalizing codes and technology development to iteratively inform and optimize rocket motor design Complete development of advanced manufacturing processes for solid rocket motors including inert components, energetic components, fabrication systems and automated assembly operations. - Activities include verification and validation of local solid rocket motor manufacturing pilot capability Commence research and development of Rotating Detonation Rocket Engines (RDREs) for tactical propulsion missions supporting reusable, attritable, and/or missile applications. Activities include: - Award contracts for heavy-weight RDRE engine design, development, and characterization to support future down-select of vendors to design flight-weight engines - Investigation and evaluation of Rocket Based Combined Cycle propulsion systems utilizing RDRE technology Commence development and demonstration of advanced fabrication techniques and rapid model-based prototyping processes for rocket motors for integration into remote or automated manufacturing systems. - Activities include development of integrated system of advanced fabrication and testing techniques for small-footprint fabrication facilities
FY 2027 funding increased by $25.780 million due to the transfer of the Missile Propulsion Integration and Demonstration effort and associated funding within this Program Element from Project 0603211F / 634093 Missile Rocket Propulsion Integ & Demo to Project 634920 / Aerospace Systems Integration & Demonstration. This includes an increase From FY2026 to FY2027 of $20.118 million due to increased cost of propellant manufacturing materials. Additionally, integration of advanced technology and fabrication into rapid, model-based prototyping for rocket motors.
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 Missile Propulsion Integration and Demonstration effort and funding were reported in Program Element 0603211F / Aerospace Technology Dev/Demo /Project 634093 / Missile Rocket Propulsion Integ & Demo. FY 2025 funding was $8.504 million and FY 2026 funding is $5.662 million.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 0.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 0.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 25.8 |
This activity is 9.9% of project 634920's FY2027 request and 9.9% 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.