What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 091 of PE 0603941D8Z. 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.
In FY 2027, HSST will continue to support the Department’s strategic goals of modernizing ground test facilities to “fly” hypersonic missions on the ground and accelerating the ability to conduct flight testing anywhere in the world. Highlights include: - Test the protype HAPCAT variable Mach nozzle in order to evaluate its performance - Initiate full capability development and acquisition of the Minnesota Aerospace Complex, a new hypersonic ground test complex with private industry to address growing demand for aerodynamic, aerothermal, and propulsion test needs - Significantly expand the SkyRange fleet with additional aircraft and sensor packages - Continue progress on hypersonic wind tunnel upgrades, resulting in throughput increase for aerodynamic testing - Increase aeroshell testing throughput and capability to include transition of “fly the mission” capability - Continue development of a research scale, high temperature material test wind tunnel - Initiate alternate approaches to propulsion and braking system protypes for lethality testing leveraging high speed sled test capability
The increase from FY 2026 to FY 2027 will support the accelerated conversion of additional RQ-4 and MQ-9 aircraft into the SkyRange RangeHawk and RangeReaper configurations, establishment of new SkyRange forward operating locations, acquisition and integration of additional test data collection sensors integrated onto SkyRange platforms; the development and implementation of the mission control element of SkyRange for both the RangeHawk and RangeReaper configurations. It also supports the development of a hypersonic ground test complex with private industry to address growing demand for aerodynamic and propulsion test needs, in increase in hypersonic aeroshell and propulsion test capability and throughput transitioning prototype “fly the mission” capability to large scale test facilities.
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.
In FY 2026, HSST continues to support the Department’s strategic goals of modernizing ground test facilities to “fly” hypersonic missions on the ground and accelerating the ability to conduct flight testing anywhere in the world. Highlights include: - Demonstrate at the HAPCAT facility the performance of radars and radomes systems that are critical to various Department hypersonic efforts - Test the protype variable Mach nozzle in order to evaluate its performance - Continue conversion of additional RQ-4 and MQ-9 aircraft into the SkyRange RangeHawk and RangeReaper configurations - Develop a prototype capability to support the mission control element of SkyRange for both the RangeHawk and RangeReaper configurations - Demonstrate range safety capability for the SkyRange RangeReaper configuration - Leverage SkyRange to reduce risk of space-based telemetry sensor development
In FY25, HSST will continue to support the Department’s strategic goals of modernizing ground test facilities to “fly” hypersonic missions on the ground and accelerating the ability to conduct flight testing anywhere in the world. Highlights include: - Further mature SkyRange capabilities while simultaneously supporting DoD flight tests - Develop a fourth generation of SkyRange telemetry antennas, providing additional capability and versatility for hypersonic telemetry collection - Continue development of SkyRange RangeReaper flight termination capability and terminal scoring system - Continue conversion of additional RQ-4 platforms into the SkyRange RangeHawk configuration - Complete SkyRange RangeHawk integration and testing of a prototype optical data collection and instrumentation system incorporating EO/IR sensors capable of producing high spatial resolution optical imagery of hypersonic vehicles in flight - Develop and demonstrate new test techniques for the HAPCAT facility, taking advantage of the clean-air, long-duration run-time capability - Demonstrate at the HAPCAT facility the performance of radars and radomes systems that are critical to various DoD hypersonic efforts
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 | 154.9 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 77.9 |
| FY2027 | Request | 1,473.5 |
This activity is 100% of project 091's FY2027 request and 38% of PE 0603941D8Z'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 091
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.