What project 079 buys
This program is creating a more lethal force that further integrates the trilateral forces, as well as strengthens the domestic defense industrial base under the regulatory framework authorized under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (Public Law 118-31). It supports the Department’s initiatives to: (1) deter strategic attacks against the United States, and its Allies and partners; (2) deter aggression while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary; and (3) build enduring advantages for the future Joint Force. Specifically, the Enhanced Trilateral Security Partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (AUKUS) will deepen defense capability and technological cooperation by developing and providing joint advanced military capabilities to promote security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. This program provides funding to pursue operationally relevant advanced capability co-development, co-production, and/or co-sustainment; support integration of multi-national capabilities to act as a force multiplier; and test and evaluate promising solutions found across the AUKUS innovation ecosystem. The program portfolio aligns with the critical technology areas and operational requirements. As new AUKUS projects are considered in FY 2026, the intent is to consider proposals submitted from the DoW Components and industry and academia partners. The appropriate leadership will select proposals using a merit-based process that identifies the most promising solutions to operational challenges with an emphasis on transitioning technologies to current or future programs of record.
Project 079 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 | 54.2 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 140.3 |
| FY2027 | Request | 156.4 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 159.1 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 153.9 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 156.0 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 156.0 |
3 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.
Current plans include: (1) increasing the scale and complexity of the AUKUS Maritime Big Play to enhance interoperability and combined capability of un-crewed maritime systems among AUKUS partners;(2) expanding and refining common architectures and standards to enhance our ability to perform coalition operations with mature Resilient…
Read the FY2027 plan →FY2027 planned work Increase complexity of experimentation to support rehearsal of live multi-national operations in the distributed test environment. Support tri-lateral exercises using multi-national capabilities distributed between the nations for cross-platform deployment of tri-laterally developed capability. Demonstrate the transition between control of uncrewed systems at multiple echelons across the nations in joint environment.
FY2026 to FY2027 change No Change.
FY2026 plans — current year Establish the MDEF network, hardware integration, and test environment to support connectivity with AUKUS partners. Secure Authority To Operator for US portion of Network and connect to SECREL network to support exchange with partners. Develop and demonstrate tri-lateral interoperable uncrewed systems to further STANAG 4817 readiness.
FY2025 accomplishments DEF software development, including achieving accreditation of a SECRET-level trilateral operational network.
FY2025 accomplishments FY 2025 plans include initiating establishment of a multi-classification level collaborative computing environment to support efforts under the AUKUS Advanced Capabilities Pillar. Funding will support technical infrastructure, licenses, project management, and other services. The initial expenditure will take place in FY 2025, with project funding to continue from FY 2026 to FY 2031.