What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 643722 of PE 1206761SF. 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.
Continuing production of PTS-G space vehicles, completing procurement of HW items, and conducting interface checkout of bus and payload subsystems. The program will begin early integration activities. In addition to space vehicles, the program will continue with interface checkout of Ground Command and Control system, which includes delivery of Joint hubs, and review of anchor station facilities to determine necessary changes. Rapidly respond to implement system resiliency and situational awareness necessary to operate in the contested space domain. Activities may include, but are not limited to program office support, studies, technical analysis, experimentation, risk reduction, prototyping, and activities that may leverage commercial, U.S. Government partnership, and international opportunities to respond to existing and emerging adversarial threats with speed and agility.
The decrease is driven by the majority of space vehicles HW purchases being front loaded in the production effort starting in FY26. The program plans to complete Critical Design Reviews, including any delta reviews, in FY26, allowing execution to complete design work and focus on production and integration events in FY27.
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.
The Program Office completed the first delivery order with Astranis, Boeing, Intelsat, Northrop Grumman, and Viasat. The design and demonstration phase resulted in mature design reviews of proposed PTS-G space vehicles (driving competition among vendors to deliver SVs with X band and military Ka band payloads) and demonstrations of payload functionality. This will be followed by the Swarm 1 production award (second delivery order) for four payloads. The program office will continue to design, demo, engineer, manufacture, and test 4 payloads (2 Ka, 2 X), and procure Joint Hub modems to enable future ground connectivity. PTS-G will have two efforts; one for X-Band production and another for mil Ka-Band production. FY 2026 activities include Critical Design Review and SV production start for both the bus and payload, and parts buy in preparation for ground integration. Activities may include, but are not limited to program office support, studies, technical analysis, experimentation, risk reduction, prototyping, and activities that may leverage commercial, U.S. Government partnership, and international opportunities to respond to existing and emerging adversarial threats with speed and agility.
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 | 82.5 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 236.8 |
| FY2027 | Request | 150.4 |
This activity is 100% of project 643722's FY2027 request and 33% of PE 1206761SF'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 643722
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.