RDT&E Project · President's Budget PB2027

NIFC-CA Supported by Airborne Platforms

FY2027 Request
$12.0M
▲ 9.1% vs FY2026
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Project 3242 — NIFC-CA Supported by Airborne Platforms requests $12.0M in FY2027, 29% of the $42.2M requested for program element 0604378N, up 9.1% on FY2026. 1 R-2A activity decomposes the request. NAWC AD is the largest named R-3 performer at $7.2M, 60% of the project's FY2027 R-3 total.

FY2027 Request
$12.0M
▲ 9.1% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$11.0M
▼ 10.0% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$12.2M
Prior year
Project detail

What project 3242 buys

Naval Integrated Fire Control (NIFC) From the Air (FTA) Systems Engineering Integration and Test (SEI&T) project is a systems engineering effort to integrate NIFC FTA capabilities within "Pillar Programs" (F/A-18 & EA-18G, E-2D, F-35, Link-16 and Tactical Targeting Network Technology Data Links, and all USN air launched Air-to-Air and Air-to-Surface weapons). Based on the advancing threat, there remains an imperative to improve lethality, survivability and interoperability by extending the battlespace out to the maximum kinematic range of our weapons for the air, surface, and strike warfare missions. The NIFC FTA project leverages capabilities inherent in existing systems, optimizes current and emerging technologies in platform system upgrades, and integrates them together to form interoperable System of Systems (SoS) to maximize offensive and defensive FTA integrated capabilities. As directed from OPNAV, the project is focused on development of Air Warfare, Surface Warfare, and Strike Warfare FTA effects chains. This PU will support efforts that include decomposing SoS requirements into Model Based Systems Engineering products including Mission Technical Baselines (MTBs), Integrated Capability Technical Baselines (ICTBs) and associated digital architectures for requirement allocation to Pillar Programs. Additionally, this PU will support NIFC pillar program coordination to provide performance predictions, performance assessments, and SoS risk reduction activities through Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) events, SoS exercises, and development of Requirements Test and Verification Matrices (RTVMs) to support Developmental and Operational Test for the individual platforms, with T&E results summarized in a Mission Assessment Report. Performance assessments include data collection and analysis on Carrier Air Wings in deployment workups in order understand the effectiveness of the fielded SoS and the operators who employ them. In lieu of a traditional Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP), NIFC FTA test strategies will be developed to identify resources required to evaluate NIFC FTA capabilities, and describe how NIFC FTA capabilities will be evaluated prior to fleet delivery.

R-3 lines of work
  • Product Development
  • Test and Evaluation
  • Management Services
Funding trajectory

Project 3242 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.

012.2FY25ACTUAL11.0FY26ENACTED12.0FY27REQUEST12.5FY2812.5FY2912.7FY3012.9FY31
Actual Enacted Request Outyear (FYDP)
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual12.2
FY2026Enacted11.0
FY2027Request12.0
FY2028Outyear12.5
FY2029Outyear12.5
FY2030Outyear12.7
FY2031Outyear12.9
Inside the project

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.

FY2025 actual$12.2M
FY2026 enacted$11.0M
FY2027 request$12.0M

Reviewing Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE) Integrated Capability Framework with Airwing of the Future 2027 to actuals. Decomposing SoS requirements into Model Based Systems Engineering products and NIFC Measures of Effectiveness and Measure of Performance to pillar programs. NIFC FTA SoS verification and validation testing of F/A-18 CIDD…

Read the FY2027 plan →
Who's building it

Named performers on project 3242

Performers named in the R-3 exhibit under this project. Share is of the project's whole FY2027 R-3 total — the same denominator the program-element split uses, so the two read on one scale and will not sum to 100% when unnamed or government work is in the mix. Budget-justification contract funding, not obligations.

NAWC AD
$7.2M · 60%
NAWC CHINA LAKE
$2.6M · 22%
NSMA
$1.6M · 14%
NAWCWD
$0.5M · 4.1%