What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 657009 of PE 1206442SF. 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.
Capability Exploitation is a new start. In FY 2027, Capability Exploitation will operationalize the first transition of an Space Modernization Initiative (SMI)-derived effort into this construct through the ThinKom phased array antenna initiative. Originally launched to rapidly demonstrate and inform requirements for the Resilient Ground Architecture (RGA), this effort evolved into a more operationally relevant demonstration with the goal of utility in both Continental United States (CONUS) and Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) locations. Building on this model, the thrust will mature efforts under the emerging program to leverage the growing availability of commercially hosted platforms, enabling rapid placement of OPIR and MW/MT payloads across diverse space architectures. Additionally, this effort will identify and pursue opportunities to demonstrate Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) sensing capabilities with the intent to both prove feasibility and leave behind operationally relevant sensor contributions wherever possible. These activities accelerate architectural learning, expand commercially-enabled mission pathways, and reinforce the deliberate design principle of designing a demonstration prototype that can also enable residual operational utility.
FY 2027 increased due to establishment of Capability Exploitation new start.
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) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2027 | Request | 20.0 |
This activity is 11% of project 657009's FY2027 request and 9.5% of PE 1206442SF'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.
5 activities in project 657009
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 project page.