What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 643730 of PE 1203710SF. 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.
Conduct Operational Demonstration #1 pre-ship review ahead of shipment of completed space vehicle to payload processing facility for launch base processing. Support launch and on-orbit checkout of General Atomics Ops Demo #1, characterizing its performance to provide ops-quality data, meet Department of War (DoW) Environmental Monitoring (EM) Electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) requirements for Cloud Characterization and Theater Weather Imagery, while informing overall EM Mission Area Acquisition Framework (MAAF) strategy for fielding full EO/IR operational systems. Initiate Operational Demonstration #2 space vehicle build. Conduct delta design activities and begin build, integration and test. Fund small launch vehicle through RSLP OSP-4 contract to support Ops Demo #2 launch in FY28, and provide support for Ops Demo #2 space vehicle to launch vehicle integration study. Rapidly respond to implement system resiliency and situational awareness necessary to operate in the contested space domain. Activities may include, but are not limited to program office support, studies, technical analysis, experimentation, risk reduction, prototyping, and activities that may leverage commercial, U.S. Government partnership, and international opportunities to respond to existing and emerging adversarial threats with speed and agility. In FY 2027, MUON, Space-Based Environmental Monitoring transfers to the newly established 'EM Data as a Service' major thrust.
FY 2027 net increase of $0.798M includes funding to enable the Operational Demonstration #2 space vehicle build and the outgoing transfer of Muon SBEM to the 'EM Data as a Service' major thrust.
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.
Conduct Operational Demonstration #1 pre-ship review ahead of shipment of completed space vehicle to payload processing facility for launch processing. Support launch and on-orbit checkout of General Atomics Ops Demo #1, characterizing its performance to provide ops-quality data, meet space-based Environmental Monitoring (SBEM) Electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) requirements for Cloud Characterization and Theater Weather Imagery, while informing SBEM acquisition strategy for fielding full operational systems. Fund small launch vehicle through RSLP OSP-4 contract to support Ops Demo #2 launch, currently slated for FY28, and provide support for Ops Demo #2 space vehicle to launch vehicle integration study. Continue to invest for the development of commercial capabilities to address full SBEM Gap requirements and Phase III activities. Develop options for remote ground station to support future Geostationary (GEO) for persistent EO/IR coverage of Indian Ocean region. Rapidly respond to implement system resiliency and situational awareness necessary to operate in the contested space domain. Activities may include, but are not limited to program office support, studies, technical analysis, experimentation, risk reduction, prototyping, and activities that may leverage commercial, U.S. Government partnership, and international opportunities to respond to existing and emerging adversarial threats with speed and agility.
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 | 67.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 69.8 |
| FY2027 | Request | 69.0 |
This activity is 48% of project 643730's FY2027 request and 48% of PE 1203710SF'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 643730
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.