What project 095 buys
The Department is exploring the military utility, safety, and suitability of directed energy weapons. A robust test capability to assess directed energy weapons is essential to understanding their effectiveness and limitations, including determining their effectiveness in performing counter improvised explosive device (C-IED) operations and counter UAS operations. Such assessments will depend upon knowledge acquired through the test and evaluation (T&E) of directed energy technologies and testing of operational concepts. Directed energy weapon technologies, primarily consisting of high energy lasers (HEL) and high powered microwaves (HPM), are outpacing available test capabilities. Traditional test techniques for evaluating conventional munitions (with flight times ranging from seconds to minutes) are not sufficient for the T&E of directed energy weapons that place energy on target instantaneously. Consequently, new test technology solutions are needed to ensure that adequate developmental, live-fire, and operational test capabilities are available when directed energy programs are ready to test. Directed energy system and component testing requires three principal assessments: (1) energy or power on target; (2) the effects on the target; and (3) the propagation of the directed energy to the target through the atmosphere. In addition, the vulnerabilities of Blue systems to directed energy threats are required to be characterized, such as those requirements captured in Military Standard (MIL-STD)-464C. Equally as important, current test capabilities do not provide the detailed data required to understand U.S. directed energy system performance and effects. The technology development efforts within the Directed Energy Test (DET) project have been prioritized to align with Department guidance on science and technology priority investments. As such, the DET project is developing the technologies necessary for quantitative assessment of United States (U.S.) HEL and HPM performance, as well as the vulnerability of Blue weapon systems to enemy directed energy threats.
Project 095 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 | 2.5 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 10.1 |
| FY2027 | Request | 10.4 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 10.6 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 10.8 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 11.0 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 11.2 |
1 accomplishment / planned program
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. Each 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.
In FY 2027, DET will continue to address test technology maturation needs addressing: - Kill chain assessment for Directed Energy systems in operationally relevant environments to include survivability assessments - Directed Energy Weapon systems testing shifts from demonstration of prototypes to fielded systems and programs of record
Read the FY2027 plan →