What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 3380 of PE 0604282N. 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.
Begin flight and chamber testing with Captive Mass Model (CMM) and Mission Systems Pod (MSP) pods in early FY 2027. Begin aeromechanical flight testing and providing analyses to support flight clearances and envelope expansion. Begin mission systems chamber and flight test. Provide test data and analyses to support correction of deficiencies found during aeromechanical and mission systems testing. Continue to monitor the execution of OEM and update test planning. Continue Modeling and Simulation and Cybersecurity testing. Provide continued support to platform integration testing activities.
Funding increases from FY 2026 to FY 2027 as aeromechanical and mission systems flight and chamber testing begins following delivery of the test pods.
FY2026: the year under way
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.
Begin aeromechanical flight test planning. Continue Capabilities Test and Evaluation planning for DT and OT testing; continue Modeling and Simulation and risk reduction activities and required modifications of test facilities. Continue to monitor and review individual OEM verification test plans and reports. Continue System Security Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) and Table Top assessments with the OEM. Complete Wind Tunnel Testing with OEM provided design models.
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 | 6.4 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 9.1 |
| FY2027 | Request | 50.3 |
This activity is 10% of project 3380's FY2027 request and 10% of PE 0604282N'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.
5 activities in project 3380
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 program-element page.