What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 628809 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: -Developing high-power resilient satellite technology, including deployable solar arrays and radiators scalable to all missions. -Efforts for landmark 40% efficiency solar cells and develop alternative power generation and storage sources. -Research enabling high degrees of freedom robotics for spacecraft operations including on-orbit refueling, spacecraft upgrade, assembly, and manufacturing. -Leadership role in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (OUSW(R&E)) Trusted and Assured Microelectronics program executing the research, development and transition of radiation hardened electronic components to support National Security Space and Strategic systems. -Adapting bench-marking capabilities on new electronics using the latest spacecraft algorithms and transitioning bench-marking capabilities and results to the acquisition community to enable data-informed payload architecture design decisions. -Development of strategic radiation hardened microprocessor. -Research and development on reliable application of high-performance commercial-based processing in future space systems to enable revolutionary on-orbit edge processing, autonomy, data fusion, and machine learning. -Effort on Hyper-Converged edge framework combining storage, computing, and networking into a single system for space systems. -Research into deployable space structure reliability. Commence: -Efforts to evaluate and develop space-based edge processing hardware for use with Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) applications. -On-orbit demonstration of state-of-the-art processor technology and of integrated logistics technologies to enhance enterprise space resilience. -Development of computer vision algorithms to enable space-based battle damage assessment. -Development of algorithms for formation management of multiple low Earth orbit small satellites, based on study of mission designs. -Technology transition of Microgravity Sediment Trap. -Transition of Variable Emissivity Materials to operational use via business development, manufacturability enhancements, and modeling parameter effects on performance. -Development of high gain rollable composite space antenna.
FY 2027 increased compared to FY 2026 by $0.994 million due to programmatic adjustments to the DAF Science and Technology portfolio. This increase reflects a strategic realignment to optimize core research areas and improve resource efficiency.
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: - Developing high-power resilient satellite technology, including deployable solar arrays and radiators scalable to all missions. - Efforts for landmark 40% efficiency solar cells and develop alternative power generation and storage sources. - Research enabling high degrees of freedom robotics for spacecraft operations including on-orbit refueling, spacecraft upgrade, assembly, and manufacturing. - Leadership role in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (OUSW(R&E)) Trusted and Assured Microelectronics program executing the research, development and transition of radiation hardened electronic components to support National Security Space and Strategic systems. - Adapting bench-marking capabilities on new electronics using the latest spacecraft algorithms and transitioning bench-marking capabilities and results to the acquisition community to enable data-informed payload architecture design decisions. - Development of strategic radiation hardened microprocessor. - Research and development on reliable application of high- performance commercial-based processing in future space systems to enable revolutionary on-orbit edge processing, autonomy, data fusion, and machine learning. - Hyper-Converged edge computing for space systems. - Research into deployable space structure's reliability. Complete: - Development of functional materials, metrology, power and thermal management for space-based sensing missions in contested environments. - Research into heterogeneous on-orbit processing capabilities in support of future on- orbit servicing objectives. - Transition of algorithms enabling scalable autonomy and multi-agent behavior for autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking (RPOD), and space logistics applications in support of Dynamic Space Operations.
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 | 44.1 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 45.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 46.0 |
This activity is 100% of project 628809's FY2027 request and 20% 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.
1 activity in project 628809
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.