What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 624846 of PE 1206601SF. 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.
Continue: -Space-based sensors for resilient target custody by target tracking space architectures. -Data analytics and data mobility solutions for edge processing, information networking, and human-machine learning in support of tactical sensing and targeting. -Trusted Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Models, through AI Assurance, for autonomous classification and identification of moving targets in support of multi- domain battlefield operations. -Development of next generation infrared detector materials that have the potential of offering higher performance. -Novel sensing concepts for space-based Moving Target Engagement (MTE) at scale in time sensitive, highly contested environments. -Focal Plane Array (FPA) research, development, and construction using novel detector material and obtain statistically significant performance characterization data product to compare with incumbent technologies. -Testing of noise properties of smaller mixed signal nodes, vital to transistor densities required for Launch Detection Missile Warning (MW), Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), and alike space-based mission sets. -Effort to transition Event Based Sensors (EBS) to program offices based on results from FY 2026 characterization & testing. -Design and laboratory testing of concepts for space-based sensing payloads. -Development of dedicated space-based sensors and sensemaking data analytics for trusted, real-time, multi-domain Moving Target Indication (MTI) by networked automated Long-Range Kill Webs (LRKW). Complete: -Sensing system networking optimized for space-based autonomous tasking and MTI from multi-tiered hybrid space architectures. Commence: -Study of military utility for Infrared Event Based Sensors (IR EBS) based on results of FY26 IR EBS research. -Integrate Trusted AI into Moving Target Indication (MTI) work flows. -Characterization of multiple dynamic range sensing solutions architectures for air and space missions.
FY 2027 increased compared to FY 2026 by $2.256 million due to increased in-house research support to Missile Warning and Tactical Sensing, adequately aligning manpower to priority DAF S&T efforts.
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.
Continue research and development of: -Space-based sensors for resilient target custody by target tracking space architectures. -Data analytics and data mobility solutions for edge processing, information networking, and human-machine learning in support of tactical sensing and targeting. -Trusted Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Models, through AI Assurance, for autonomous classification and identification of moving targets in support of multi- domain battlefield operations. -Sensing system networking optimized for space-based autonomous tasking and Moving Target Indication (MTI) from multi-tiered hybrid space architectures. -Development of next generation infrared detector materials that have the potential of offering higher performance. -Novel sensing concepts for space-based Moving Target Engagement (MTE) at scale in time sensitive, highly contested environments. -Focal Plane Arrays research, development, and construction using novel detector material and obtain statistically significant performance characterization data product to compare with incumbent technologies. -Testing of noise properties of smaller mixed signal nodes, vital to transistor densities required for Launch Detection Missile Warning (MW), Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), and alike space-based mission sets. -Effort to transition Event Based Sensors (EBS) to program offices based on results from FY 2025 characterization & testing. -Design and laboratory testing of concepts for space-based sensing payloads. -Development of dedicated space-based sensors and sensemaking data analytics for trusted, real-time, multi-domain Moving Target Indicator (MTI) by networked automated Long-Range Kill Webs (LRKW). Complete: -Build and characterization of high dynamic range low read-noise. Focal Plane Arrays (FPA) specialized Air Force/Space Force demo program with results to be leveraged on Space Systems Command (SSC) EPOCH-2 & Space Development Agency (SDA) Tranche-1 activities.
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 | 14.2 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 14.1 |
| FY2027 | Request | 16.4 |
This activity is 41% of project 624846's FY2027 request and 7.0% of PE 1206601SF'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.
2 activities in project 624846
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.