What project MD96 buys
The LRDR program is a crucial component of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) mission, playing a significant role in the development and deployment of a layered Missile Defense System. This system is designed to defend the homeland from missile attacks of all ranges, in all phases of flight. The LRDR's contribution provides persistent long-range midcourse discrimination, precision tracking and hit assessment, thereby enhancing the Missile Defense System Homeland Defense Capability. Additionally, the LRDR program supports the United States Space Force's (USSF) Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and Space Object Identification (SOI) mission areas, further underlining its importance. The LRDR Program Element includes the requirements to design, develop, integrate, deliver, field, and sustain the LRDR. The LRDR operates in the S-band frequency with a scalable and open systems architecture to mitigate evolving threats and integrates into the Missile Defense System through the Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) system. The LRDR will incorporate discrimination improvements to enhance its effectiveness against advancing threats by discriminating and identifying re-entry vehicles with a higher degree of confidence to improve system performance and conserve ground-based interceptor inventory. The LRDR is comprised of an equipment shelter, two radar array faces, a mission control facility for radar operations, and supporting facilities and infrastructure. The Secretary of the Air Force approved Clear Space Force Station (CSFS), formerly known as Clear Air Force Station, AK as the LRDR site. The USSF Space Operations Command is the designated Lead Major Command. LRDR completed initial fielding on December 6, 2021. MDA pursued an incremental fielding approach in cooperation with the Northern Command, the Space Command, and the USSF. Early use fielding of the LRDR SDA capability occurred on March 27, 2024. LRDR was added to the Missile Defense System Operational Capability List (OCL) for SDA on December 20, 2024. LRDR Homeland Defense capability is planned to be added to the OCL in 3Q FY 2025. Operational Acceptance (OA) by the USSF is scheduled for 4Q fiscal year (FY) 2025 following the completion of the LRDR Homeland Defense trial period and the operational Flight Test Other (FTX)-26a.
- Product Development
- Support
Project MD96 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 | 91.7 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 53.8 |
| FY2027 | Request | 121.1 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 201.6 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 196.9 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 175.6 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 139.0 |
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.
- Accelerate delivery of the LRDR software required to track and discriminate advanced threats. - Initiate Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) by creating initial models for radar simulations and mitigating legacy document-centric systems to MBSE. - Initiate monthly containerized software deliveries to support system-level development…
Read the FY2027 plan →Named performers on project MD96
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.