What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 921 of PE 0604924D8Z. 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.
Advanced Prototypes: Using a modular open system approach, refine a previously developed reference architecture for advanced prototypes. Provide support to programs implementing the reference architecture. Test and Evaluation: Continue to conduct operational analysis and mission studies. Leverage these studies to develop and refine common directed energy weapon system requirements and command and control timelines. Integrate lessons learned from these studies into test and evaluation efforts across the Department of War to support requirement development, reduce kill chain latencies, and enable more robust battle management. Mission-driven lethality/survivability: Continue to collect lethality/survivability data for a prioritized list of threats and a prioritized set of aimpoints on those threats. Develop vulnerability modules from this data based on a Joint process with approved standards for distribution to the Services and Agencies. Mission Engineering: Review models and update engagement-level models with vulnerability modules uploaded to a Joint repository. Distribute the updated models to support directed energy weapon system integration into exiting force development and force design studies for future employment of directed energy weapon systems. Manufacturing: Review/validate previous FY evaluation of capabilities of current manufacturers, identify technology gaps, and assess the defense industrial base and readiness to support advanced manufacturing techniques for directed energy weapon systems.
The increase of $38.957 million between FY 2026 and FY 2027 is to invest in the rapid development of Advanced Prototypes and support the key requirements of Test and Evaluation, Mission-driven lethality/survivability, Mission Engineer, and Manufacturing. Investments will enable rapid fielding of Directed Energy systems and inform the Services to select for a Program of Record.
FY2025–FY2026: what came before
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.
Advanced Prototypes: Using a modular open system approach, refine a previously developed reference architecture for advanced prototypes. Provide support to programs implementing the reference architecture. Test and Evaluation: Conduct operational analysis and mission studies. Leverage these studies to develop and refine common directed energy weapon system requirements and command and control timelines. Integrate lessons learned from these studies into test and evaluation efforts across the Department of War to support requirement development, reduce kill chain latencies, and enable more robust battle management. Mission-driven lethality/survivability: Collect lethality/survivability data for a prioritized list of threats and a prioritized set of aimpoints on those threats. Develop vulnerability modules from this data based on a Joint process with approved standards for distribution to the Services and Agencies. Mission Engineering: Update engagement-level models with vulnerability modules uploaded to a Joint repository. Distribute the updated models to support directed energy weapon system integration into exiting force development and force design studies for future employment of directed energy weapon systems. Manufacturing: Evaluate capabilities of current manufacturers, identify technology gaps, and assess the defense industrial base and readiness to support advanced manufacturing techniques for directed energy weapon systems.
- Open Architectures: Using a modular open system approach, leverage previously identified reference architectures and identify a scalable beam control solution. - Command and Control: Survey engagement timelines for missions across the Department of Defense and optimize the kill chain associated with directed energy weapon systems to reduce latency and enable more robust battle management. - Mission Engineering: Develop high fidelity system-level models and conduct military utility studies with warfighter input to evaluate the future employment of directed energy weapon systems in operationally relevant environments.
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 | 2.9 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 5.5 |
| FY2027 | Request | 44.5 |
This activity is 100% of project 921's FY2027 request and 100% of PE 0604924D8Z'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.
1 activity in project 921
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.