What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project BY2 of PE 0603464A. 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.
Will mature biological synthesis and biomanufacturing to produce multi-kilogram quantities of energetic materials for formulation assessments; design and develop AI models for additional bio-reachable precursors for advanced energetics applications; begin conducting experiments for scale-up of next precursor molecule; designs and develops bio manufactured processes of energetic material to support scale-up and transition to defense base industry partners; investigate and determine additional biologically produced energetic precursor materials for scalability to support multi-kilogram quantities; mature biologically derived cellulose synthesis conditions for optimal purity, crystallinity, and fiber morphology and refine nitrating conditions for biologically derived cellulose to obtain nitrocellulose; determine impact of biologically derived nitrocellulose fibers on processing and performance of nitrocellulose propellants; investigate cellulose production from down selected candidates and synthetic biology routes for improved yield and quality; conduct experiments with artificial intelligence (AI) modeling to mature bacterial strains for higher production and ideal cellulose characterization.
Funding increase reflects technology investments and expand collaboration with industry partners to include initial system analysis and design of long range missile systems and associated component technologies.
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.
Will continue limited maturation of assured navigation, advanced materials and structures, terminal sensor, propulsion, and high-speed effector component technologies; evaluate promising industry subsystem and component technologies for further development.
Develop and mature advanced modeling and simulation capability for determining system definition concepts and identification of critical technology performance requirements for future high speed vehicle applications; mature emerging technologies in the development of next generation high temperature materials and aerothermal structures for high speed vehicle applications; mature guidance, navigation and control technology to reduce both size, weight, and power (SWAP) packaging and reduce reliance on GPS for navigation accuracy in contested environments; mature terminal sensor component technologies to include, but not limited to Infrared/Radio Frequency (IR/RF) transparent windows, antennas, and transceivers for high speed vehicle applications; mature emerging propulsion and warhead technologies with greater performance to size/weight ratios.
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 | 41.7 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 9.9 |
| FY2027 | Request | 26.7 |
This activity is 100% of project BY2's FY2027 request and 6.3% of PE 0603464A'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.
1 activity in project BY2
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.