Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (PE 0305205F) · Air Force

What it is

Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (0305205F) is an Air Force research & development line funded in the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force account. Its J-book detail breaks the line into 1 project.

What changed

No FY25→26 comparison — endpoints unavailable or on different bases.

Who gets it

No company is linked to this line. Award records do not carry the program element, so the crosswalk is silent here — why.

Budget figures

FY24 Actuals

$30.0MR-1 TOA · PB2026

FY25 Enacted

$0J-book detail · PB2026

FY26 Request

$0J-book detail · PB2026

FY25→26 Change

No comparison: endpoints unavailable or on different bases

No FY2026 R-1/P-1 request line for this program element. The FY2026 President's Budget request workbook carries no FY2026 line for it; its last workbook figure is FY2024. The PB2026 J-book detail below does carry an FY2026 row for this line, recorded as zero. A workbook blank and a documented zero are different records, and this page shows both. An absent line is not by itself an ending — PB2026 renumbered program elements at scale across the services and defense agencies, so this work may continue under a different number. No successor is linked for this line: this site's program-lineage layer holds no keyed edge pointing forward from here. That is an absence in this site's lineage layer, not a finding about the program: if the J-book narrative on this page describes a realignment, it is quoted below in the document's own words, and this note does not restate it.

Data coverage

FY2026 award data is a partial year — USAspending reports awards on a rolling basis, and this corpus runs through 2026-09-04. why partial FY2026 data? →

Budget trajectory

The program's 3 summary figures for FY24 to FY26, plotted in fiscal-year order: this line ends lower than it starts. The points are the summary cards above, not a separate derivation; the table beside the chart carries each figure with its own citation.

Budget trajectory: one row per fiscal year, carrying the summary figure the sparkline plots. Every figure opens its own citation.
Fiscal year	Amount
FY24	$30.0MR-1 TOA · PB2026
FY25	$0J-book detail · PB2026
FY26	$0J-book detail · PB2026

Decade view

P-1/R-1 workbook TOA basis, shown compact in $B/$M (the workbook records USD thousands); each figure cites its own President's Budget edition

10 fiscal years of this program as published (FY2015–FY2024): a line through the actuals (filled dots), with the enacted (hollow circles) and request (diamonds) markers each edition reported. Read it for direction, not for precision — this program's actuals line rises across the span, and 2 years are a break in the line rather than a low value: an edition the program is absent from, never interpolated. The grid below is the same data as text, one cited figure per cell.

The vertical scale does not start at zero: the baseline sits just below this program’s smallest year, so a low point on this line is not a small amount. Read the shape for direction and the grid below for the figures.

● actuals (line) · ○ enacted · ◇ request — gaps are editions the program is absent from, never interpolated.

Decade series values by fiscal year and President's Budget edition: one row per series (actuals, enacted, request), one column per fiscal year. Every figure opens its own citation.
Series	FY15	FY16	FY17	FY18	FY19	FY20	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY24
Actuals	$20.0M	$5.00M	$50.0M	$40.0M	$15.0M	$15.0M	–	$0	–	$30.0M
Enacted		$5.00M	$0	$0	$15.0M	$15.0M	$0	–	$0	$30.0M
Request			$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	–	$30.0M

blank = series not published for this year; – = absent from that edition.

Asked vs spent: the PB2017 book requested $0 for FY2017; the PB2019 book reported $50.0M as actual total obligation authority — $50.0M above the request. 50.0 − 0.0 = 50.0 USD millions — the compact figures above are rounded for reading.

Program lineage

No predecessor/successor lineage was recorded for this program element — no FY-to-FY transfer into or out of this line was stated in the ingested J-books, and none was inferred from the program structure.

Description

Mission — Engineering Analysis

The Ultra Long-endurance Unmanned Reconnaissance Aircraft (ULTRA) is an Air Force-led technology and concept development effort to demonstrate, transition, and field an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) that is capable of multiple-day duration flights while still being extremely affordable. ULTRA is a shift in UAS design paradigm by significantly leveraging commercial-off-the-shelf technologies to minimize expensive custom/proprietary items while at the same time simplifying maintenance and manpower costs. The payload integration for ULTRA maintains a modular and flexible architecture to allow for rapid integration of customer-driven payload options. ULTRA was initiated by the Air Force Research Lab in 2018 in response to demand signals for long-endurance ISR that maintains an affordable edge. ULTRA leverages and builds off the successes and lessons learned of several AFRL, DoD, and other partner-funded development efforts from 2015-2021, including the Long Endurance Aerial Platform UAS which transitioned in 2019 and a number of unique payload developments and integrations. These prior developments guided and informed the initial development and demonstration of ULTRA. The initial ULTRA UAS was developed in 2018 and flight-tested in 2019. In 2020 ULTRA performed limited operational test and evaluation over a six-month period, the results of which informed payload and system requirements to meet current and future needs. Future operational test and evaluation in relevant operational environments is a critical next step in developing ULTRA as an affordable ultra-long endurance ISR platform that is responsive to current and future needs. This program element may include necessary civilian pay expenses required to manage, execute, and deliver weapon system capability. The use of such program funds would be in addition to the civilian pay expenses budgeted in program element 0605827F, 0605828F, 0605829F, 0605831F, 0605832F, 0605833F, 0605898F, 0606398F. No FY26 Funding is requested. This program is in Budget Activity 5, System Development and Demonstration (SDD) because it has passed Milestone B approval and is conducting engineering and manufacturing development tasks aimed at meeting validated requirements prior to full rate production.

Justification

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (1)

Ultra Long-endurance Unmanned Reconnaissance Aircraft (ULTRA) Flight Demonstration

This effort is not a new start. It is a flight demonstration of the ULTRA program, which was previously executed in FY23 and prior years under Program 0604555D8Z Operational Energy Prototyping, and under Section 219 authorities. This effort conducts integration and preparation work required to prepare the ULTRA platform for flight demonstration in operationally relevant environments in response to an urgent operational need. It leverages technologies and expertise from across all of the Air Force Research Laboratories, integrating and testing a variety of technologies.

Budget line items(workbook-cited)

P-1/R-1 workbook Total Obligation Authority basis (USD thousands) · PB2026.

Exhibit R-1

Account	Org	Type	Amount
Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force	F	FY24 Actuals	$30.0M

Budget Details(R-2/P-40 facts)

J-book detail basis (R-2/P-40, USD millions) · PB2026 — a different accounting basis from the P-1/R-1 workbook TOA above; where the two disagree, the reconciliation strip under Budget figures shows both.

Wider than this screen — swipe the table sideways for the remaining fiscal-year columns.

Project	All Prior Years	FY24 Actuals	FY25 Total	FY26 Base	FY26 Request
Program Element	$0	$30.0M	$0	$0	$0
654236: Engineering Analysis	$0	$30.0M	$0	$0	$0

Follow the dollar

No follow-the-dollar view — this program's awards haven't been crosswalked at high confidence (flows cover 312 of 1,938 programs). why coverage is partial? →

Awards

No awards are linked to this program element at high or medium confidence — the budget→award crosswalk only asserts links it can defend, and this line has none yet.

Lobbying mentions

Showing 25 of 105 from the Senate LDA disclosure database.

BAE SYSTEMS INCUnmanned|Vehicles2026matched 2+ title words

National Defense Authorization Act, 2027 (HR 8800/S 4784); provisions regarding R&D - Navy, US Marine Corps, Air…

Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Budget figures

Budget trajectory

Decade view

Program lineage

Description

Mission — Engineering Analysis source

Justification

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (1)

Budget line items(workbook-cited)

Budget Details(R-2/P-40 facts)

Follow the dollar

Awards

Lobbying mentions

Oversight

Program dossier

Primary sources

Budget totals · TOA sources

Detailed budget justification

Mission — Engineering Analysis