What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project DAT-01 of PE 0603467E. 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.
- Evaluate long duration subscale component performance. - Execute performer-based incremental test plan to demonstrate approach viability. - Conduct graded component evaluations to demonstrate progress towards critical technical challenges. - Integrate viable components into full system. - Demonstrate system capability in controlled environment with traceability to reaching program metrics.
The FY 2027 decrease reflects the shift from subscale component-level testing to preparation for final system demonstration.
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.
- Evaluate current state-of-the-art technologies to identify the most promising for future development. - Conduct a study to categorize the viability of components to be incorporated with the capability. - Conduct system design based on initial evaluations and studies. - Perform subscale component-level testing. - Conduct performance testing in representative environments.
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) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2026 | Enacted | 24.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 20.8 |
This activity is 5.1% of project DAT-01's FY2027 request and 1.3% of PE 0603467E'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.
16 activities in project DAT-01
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.