What project 2731 buys
The High Energy Laser Counter-ASCM Project (HELCAP) will accelerate the integration of High Energy Laser (HEL) technologies and prototype HEL weapon systems through demonstrations of critical technologies integral to defeating Anti-Ship Cruise Missile (ASCM) targets with non-kinetic weapon systems. HELCAP has developed a High Energy Laser (HEL) source capable of ASCM defeat while also enabling target acquisition, identification, and atmospheric correction abilities through advanced beam control subsystem maturation. The Directed Energy Testing Against Missiles (DETAM) effort will utilize the Laser Weapon Testbed (LWT) and other Directed Energy (DE) assets to initiate a Test & Evaluation (T&E) campaign focused on transitioning Naval HEL technologies to operational use by evaluating them in a realistic operating environment. DETAM will promote advanced laser component development while testing prototype weapon systems against surrogate ASCMs and advanced operational threats to ensure rapid integration of HEL weapon systems with the Naval Fleet.
- Product Development
- Support
- Test and Evaluation
- Management Services
Project 2731 funding, FY2025–FY2031
Prior years are actuals, the budget year is the request, and the outyears are the FYDP plan. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure. Projects carry the full five-year plan; the activities inside them stop at the budget year.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 4.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 0.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 15.0 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 5.0 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 4.0 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 2.0 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 1.9 |
2 accomplishments / planned programs
The R-2A exhibit — the only level of the budget that describes work that has not happened yet. Activities carry the prior, current and budget year only, no five-year plan. 1 of them describes FY2027 work in enough detail to have its own page; the rest are shown here in full. Coverage is partial across the corpus, so count activities, never total them.
- Initiate comprehensive testing of laser beam control systems for Directed Energy assets. - Initiate mission-relevant Laser Weapon System (LWS) upgrades through data-driven technology insertions. - Initiate a surrogate Anti-Ship Cruise Missile (ASCM) target program for LWS lethality assessments.
Read the FY2027 plan →Named performers on project 2731
Performers named in the R-3 exhibit under this project. Share is of the project's whole FY2027 R-3 total — the same denominator the program-element split uses, so the two read on one scale and will not sum to 100% when unnamed or government work is in the mix. Budget-justification contract funding, not obligations.