R-2A Activity · President's Budget PB2027

Rocket Engine Technology Development

FY2027 Request
$14.4M
▲ 1.8% vs FY2026
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This activity requests $14.4M in FY2027, 58% of project 624847, up 1.8% on FY2026. The R-2A exhibit describes it across FY2026–FY2027, including what the FY2027 money is planned to buy.

FY2027 Request
$14.4M
▲ 1.8% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$14.2M
▲ 24% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$11.5M
Prior year
Planned work

What the FY2027 request buys

Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 624847 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.

FY2027 planned work

Continue: -Employment of new fuel and material operating limitations, manufacturing processes, and launch goals including remote launch site analyses and launch pad material measurements. Activities include development of austere launch concepts of operation including validation of fuel/material launch pad interactions factors and scale-up of engine ground testing. -Development and payoff determination of rotating detonation rocket engine technologies including testing that inform a heavyweight rocket engine. Activities include scale up of hardware to flight-weight and progress from ground testing to demonstration. -Technology and material studies supporting rapid launch capabilities including demonstration of mobile modular payload processing operations. Activities include validation of payload processing facility design and verification of developed payload processing concept of operations for rapid launch use cases. Complete: - Development, demonstration, and evaluation of advanced material solutions for high temperature components in rocket propulsion including final facility qualification of multiscale rocket engine test stand. Activities include final activation, calibration, and tuning of new rocket engine test stand.

FY2026 to FY2027 change

FY 2027 increased compared to FY 2026 by $0.259 million due to increased component and rocket propellant cost.

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

Continue: - Employment of new fuel and material operating limitations, manufacturing processes, and launch goals including remote launch site analyses and launch pad material measurements - Develop, demonstrate, and evaluate advanced material solutions for high temperature components in rocket propulsion including final facility qualification of multiscale rocket engine test stand - Development and payoff determination of rotating detonation rocket engine technologies including testing that inform a heavyweight rocket engine - Technologies and material studies supporting rapid launch capabilities including demonstration of mobile modular payload processing 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.

011.5FY25ACTUAL14.2FY26ENACTED14.4FY27REQUEST
Actual Enacted Request
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual11.5
FY2026Enacted14.2
FY2027Request14.4

This activity is 58% of project 624847's FY2027 request and 6.2% 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.

Where this sits

3 activities in project 624847

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.

Rocket Engine Technology Development — this activity$14.4M ▲ 2%
On-Orbit Propulsion Technology Development$8.7M ▼ 21%
Applied Space Access Technologies$1.8M flat
Source
FY2027 Department of the Air Force RDT&E Budget Justification · Exhibit R-2A · PE 1206601SF, project 624847 (President's Budget PB2027). Congressional marks are recorded on the program element, never on an activity.
Machine access
Markdown twin /programs/1206601SF/624847/a0.md · MCP mcp.hitchintel.combudget_get_activity