What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 094 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, AIST will continue to develop test technologies for assessing emerging weapon systems at ISTF/HITL as well as open-air range test facilities (including high altitude, land-based, open-ocean, and undersea ranges). Highlights include: - Developing tools for “what-if” analytics to improve range planning processes and automate range scheduling, resulting in reduced time to schedule/reschedule tests on open-air ranges and ground test facilities and increasing range availability - Maintain a high level of capability and readiness to support each of the technology portfolios - Prepare infrastructure for future needs - Develop new infrared tracking technologies - Develop advanced multi-object tracking capabilities
The $47.087 million increase from FY 2026 to FY 2027 will provide for range planning and scheduling improvements as well as the development of additional mobile sensors.
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, AIST will continue to develop test technologies for assessing emerging weapon systems at ISTF/HITL as well as open-air range test facilities (including tropospheric, land-based, open-ocean, and undersea ranges). Highlights include: - Continue efforts to develop a mobile shallow water range to evaluate unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV) sensors and systems for high-resolution ocean environmental sensing, monitoring, and prediction systems
In FY25, AIST will continue to develop test technologies for assessing emerging weapon systems at DoD installed systems test and hardware-in-the-loop facilities and (ISTF/HITL) as well as open-air range test facilities (including tropospheric, land-based, open-ocean, and undersea ranges). Highlights include: - Continue efforts to develop a mobile shallow water range to evaluate unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV) sensors and systems for high-resolution ocean environmental sensing, monitoring, and prediction systems - Continue development of a soft catch system for large caliber munitions to assess munitions internal ballistics, strength of design, and function of critical components, where the munition can be fired at operational velocities, and captured in a way that does not damage the projectile or the environment
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 | 18.6 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 18.8 |
| FY2027 | Request | 65.9 |
This activity is 100% of project 094's FY2027 request and 1.7% 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 094
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.