R-2A Activity · President's Budget PB2027

Contested Space Modeling for Capabilities, Analysis, and Verification Environment (CAVE)

Activity a2·Project 641234 — USSPACECOM Rapid Prototype Demonstration·PE 1206415F·U.S. Air Force
FY2027 Request
$12.0M
▲ 1.7% vs FY2026
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This activity requests $12.0M in FY2027, 35% of project 641234, up 1.7% on FY2026. The R-2A exhibit describes it across FY2026–FY2027, including what the FY2027 money is planned to buy.

FY2027 Request
$12.0M
▲ 1.7% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$11.8M
▲ 95% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$6.1M
Prior year
Planned work

What the FY2027 request buys

Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 641234 of PE 1206415F. 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.

FY2027 planned work

Expand capabilities in: - Baseline software, tools, models, and data at the mission- and campaign-level to inform senior leaders evolving inquiries and decisions on space investments, requirements, acquisition, operational COAs, operational risk, and future planning; Baseline front-end campaign-level and mission-level M&S software and tools supporting sufficiently accurate and very timely exploratory analytics to optimize operational planning, wargaming, and concepts; Leverage model-based analysis of current and future space-based effects to effect technology demonstrations and rapid operational prototyping opportunities; Capitalize on Industry Innovations to Develop future technical capabilities via Accelerator/Incubator collaboration, derived from risk-reduction modeling of space effects; In coordination with USSF/S9, continue assessing and integrating enterprise-level model data for MW, ISR, and SATCOM capabilities into campaign-level modeling; Support cost benefit analyses of space Control activities with quantifiable impacts to warfighter operations.

FY2026 to FY2027 change

Funding increased due to increase in requirements.

Before the request year

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.

FY2026 plans — current year

Baseline development of software and tools to model contested space - Baseline software, tools, models, and data at the mission- and campaign-level to inform senior leaders evolving inquiries and decisions on space investments, requirements, acquisition, operational COAs, operational risk, and future planning; Baseline front-end campaign-level and mission-level M&S software and tools supporting sufficiently accurate and very timely exploratory analytics to optimize operational planning, wargaming, and concepts; Leverage model-based analysis of current and future space-based effects to effect technology demonstrations and rapid operational prototyping opportunities; Capitalize on Industry Innovations to Develop future technical capabilities via Accelerator/Incubator collaboration, derived from risk-reduction modeling of space effects; In coordination with USSF/S9, continue assessing and integrating enterprise-level model data for MW, ISR, and SATCOM capabilities into campaign-level modeling; Support cost benefit analyses of space Control activities with quantifiable impacts to warfighter operations.

Money

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.

06.1FY25ACTUAL11.8FY26ENACTED12.0FY27REQUEST
Actual Enacted Request
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual6.1
FY2026Enacted11.8
FY2027Request12.0

This activity is 35% of project 641234's FY2027 request and 35% of PE 1206415F'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.

Where this sits

7 activities in project 641234

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.

Contested Space Modeling for Capabilities, Analysis, and Verification Environment (CAVE) — this activity$12.0M ▲ 2%
Space Operations Research, Development, and Experimentation$8.0M flat
Classified Space Threat-Based Studies and Analysis$6.9M ▲ 12%
Space Operations Application Prototyping and Integration$4.6M ▲ 14%
Lighthouse$2.8M ▲ 10%
Commercial Capability Platform Integration into USSPACECOM Operations$0.3M flat
PNT Operational Assessments$0.3M ▼ 50%
Source
FY2027 Department of the Air Force RDT&E Budget Justification · Exhibit R-2A · PE 1206415F, project 641234 (President's Budget PB2027). Congressional marks are recorded on the program element, never on an activity.
Machine access
Markdown twin /programs/1206415F/641234/a2.md · MCP mcp.hitchintel.combudget_get_activity