What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 645350 of PE 0604858F. 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.
- Continue to execute Air Force CSAT Blue Horizons Class XII Projects, developing candidate solutions to the Academic Year 2027 strategic dilemma posed by CSAF. Solutions will address the Homeland Defense, LRKC, Counter-HVAA, and Counter-Surface Action Group missions. - Conduct rapid experimentation to evaluate new capabilities and technologies, rigorously assessing their effectiveness in addressing identified capability shortfalls. The experimentation is synergistic with prototyping activities, and critical to the assessment and analysis. Prioritized Mission Engineering Threads, such as Counter-Air (HVAA-Protect, C-UAS), Persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (MQ-Next, Multi-Mission Autonomy), and Rapid Strike (LRKC, Next Generation Airlift) will guide these efforts. The data generated from these experiments will be used to make informed decisions regarding potential follow-on development, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities and maximizing return on investment.
- FY 2027 funding increased compared to FY 2026 by $27.282 million. This increase is due to new work in the Capability Development portfolio and updated emerging projects that are aligned with emerging threats. Projects and experimentation priorities are informed by Mission Engineering Threads, as detailed in the FY 2027 plans.
FY2026: the year under way
Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.
- Execute Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology (CSAT) Blue Horizons Class XI Projects, developing candidate solutions to the Academic Year 2026 strategic dilemma posed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF). Solutions will address the Homeland Defense, Long Range Kill Chain (LRKC), Counter-High Value Airborne Asset (HVAA), and Counter-Surface Action Group missions. - Conduct rapid experimentation and assessment of candidate solutions addressing emerging capability gaps to inform potential follow-on development, including projects such as Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-sUAS), HVAA-Protect, and other potential emerging projects.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 3.5 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 8.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 35.3 |
This activity is 85% of project 645350's FY2027 request and 21% of PE 0604858F'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.
3 activities in project 645350
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.