P-8 Improvements
The P-8A MMA program's Assured Maritime Dominance Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) activities include a sequence of Rapid Capability Insertions (RCI) and rapid development efforts to respond to evolving threats and adversary capabilities, which will retain cost effectiveness for winning major combat operations. In order to pace the threat, these efforts will incorporate incremental software and/or hardware improvements that increase/exceed the current performance envelope, to include reliability/maintainability improvements, obsolescence, periodic technology insertion, urgent operational needs, correction of deficiencies and flight safety issues to existing sensor capabilities, communications systems, mission systems, airframe and engine component systems, weapons capabilities, training systems and Tactical Operations Center (TOC) /Tacmobile support to build on the P-8A capability baseline. These planned and emergent requirements will be prioritized through either the Navy Integration and interoperability (I&I) aligned Capability Prioritization Process (CPP), P-8A Capability Roadmap and/or through Fleet identification of an Urgent Operational Need. The CPP process is supported by detailed analysis and the maturations of developing technologies. Assured Maritime Dominance activities include principal mission lethality, survivability against kinetic and non-kinetic threats, and capability persistence in high-level threat environments. Rapid Development efforts increase lethality through optimization of kill-chain software systems, employment of LRASM, and other weapon systems and Airborne Weapon Simulator capabilities. RCI4 capabilities include kill-chain/gap analysis, ASW Enhancements, common weapons synchronization, and Airborne Weapon Simulator continuation. RCI5 capabilities increase P-8A survivability through Radio Frequency Counter Measure (RFCM) Self Protection Pod/Advanced Survivability Pod (ASP) Certification, P-8A Survivability Assurance and distributed sensor network improvements.
Accelerate development and fielding of critical warfighting Rapid Capability Insertion (RCI) packages that deter attack and prevail in conflict. Key efforts include: Finalizing RCI-4 Common Weapons Synchronization /Airborne Weapons Simulator (AWS) to incorporate LRASM, Mk54 Mod 2 Torpedo capabilities, and ASW enhancements into the I3B2…
Read the FY2027 plan →FY2027 planned work Accelerate technical, cost, risk and logistics analysis of RCI-4 and RCI-5. Finalize RCI-4 Common Weapons Synchronization /AWS to incorporate LRASM, Mk54 Mod 2 Increment Torpedo capabilities and ASW enhancements into the I3B2 P-8A software configuration. Accelerate analysis of RCI-5 ASP and DBD requirements to enable rapid and affordable capability and insertion.
FY2026 to FY2027 change Increase of $4.108 in FY27 is for Program Mgmt Support for the SW integration, flight test and airworthiness certification.
FY2026 plans — current year Conduct technical, cost, risk and logistics analysis of proposed technologies. Evaluate system requirements through cost/performance trade-off analysis continuing the execution of RCI-5. Continuing RCI-4 efforts include the LRASM capability merge as well as the initial Mk54 Mod 2 capability into the baseline P-8A software configuration.