Printed from https://fiscalreceipts.com/program/0604025F/ — built September 26, 2026. Every figure is citation-backed; see the page online for per-number provenance.
Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER)
Budget figures
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 FY2025. 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.
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
| Fiscal year | Amount |
|---|---|
| FY24 | $62.6MR-1 TOA · PB2026 |
| FY25 | $75.1MR-1 TOA · 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
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.
| Series | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actuals | $0 | $61.9M | $62.6M | |
| Enacted | – | $0 | $154.3M | $75.1M |
| Request | – | – | $154.3M | $75.1M |
blank = series not published for this year; – = absent from that edition.
Asked vs spent: the PB2024 book requested $154.3M for FY2024; the PB2026 book reported $62.6M as actual total obligation authority — $91.7M below the request. 62.6 − 154.3 = -91.7 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 — Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER)
No funds requested in the 2026 President's Budget. Experimentation Efforts supported under the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) for FY 2025: -Angry Badger: experiment to develop capability for achieving force projection in highly contested environments utilizing existing aircraft fleet structure. --(previous: JRBL Cage: Consolidation of Best in Breed Podded technologies) -DEFEND Experimentation -Classified Projects (more information available in appropriate forums) This effort is in Budget Activity 4, Advanced Component Development and Prototypes (ACD&P), because efforts are necessary to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high fidelity and realistic operating environment.
Mission — AFWERX Prime
The Department of the Air Force's component of the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) is executed within this program element (PE). To facilitate rapid modernization of the force, the RDER initiative was established in the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 2023-2027, to encourage multi-component experimentation through a campaign of learning. Services, Agencies, and other participating organizations are to identify "best of breed” capabilities developed among the DoD prototyping programs, and execute approved projects through large-scale, cross- service experiments in order to refine and/or validate the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC). Organizations nominate proposals to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) that are multi-component — involving Joint Services, International partners and/or other government agencies and link to one or more of the four key supporting concepts ("functional battles”) of the Joint Warfighting Concept: Joint Concept for Fires, Joint Concept for Command and Control, Joint Concept for Contested Logistics, and Joint Concept for Information Advantage.
Mission — Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve
No funds requested in the 2026 President's Budget. Experimentation Efforts supported under Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) for FY 2025: -Angry Badger: experiment to develop capability for achieving force projection in highly contested environments utilizing existing aircraft fleet structure. --(previous: JRBL Cage: Consolidation of Best in Breed Podded technologies) -DEFEND Experimentation -Classified Projects (more information available in appropriate forums)
Justification
Accomplishments & Planned Programs (2)
Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve
The Department of Defense implement multiple RDER experimentation series through Service nominated projects with execution timelines ranging from one to two years. The USD (R&E) will review project progress, and recommend new focus areas at least annually with the goal of quickly incorporating the most promising innovative prototypes into experiments, and promptly terminating projects that fail to achieve expectations. To incentivize a disciplined approach to rapidly identify, incorporate, and execute projects largely through the Military Services, the Department will fund approved Service projects for the upcoming fiscal year out of the Department reserves. Funding decisions on additional funds in follow-on years for new projects, and funding decrements for project terminations will be incorporated in budgets annually based on emerging requirements and periodic assessments of project viability. Services will execute these funds under oversight of the OSD in a manner consistent with the experimentation scenario for which individual projects were selected. Service experimentation outcomes will be designed to validate required capabilities enabling the JWC by evaluating and integrating prototyped technologies in operationally relevant, multi-domain environments. Experimentation results will facilitate Joint Staff analysis in the evaluation of the Joint Warfighting Concept, assist the Joint Requirements Oversight Counsel in requirements determination, and inform the Deputy's Management Action Group to make budget decisions that effect changes throughout the Department.
RDT&E Program Wide Activities
USAF RDER efforts supporting joint experimentation
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 | $62.6M |
| Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force | F | FY25 Enacted | $75.1M |
| Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force | F | FY25 Total | $75.1M |
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 | $62.6M | $75.1M | $0 | $0 |
| 640858: AFWERX Prime | $0 | $62.6M | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 640862: Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve | $0 | $0 | $75.1M | $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
No Senate LDA lobbying filing in the tracked data mentions this program element by code or alias.
Oversight
Department-level designation (not specific to this program)
GAO lists 5 high-risk areas for DOD as a whole. That designation covers the department, not Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER). No program-specific GAO finding for this line is in the ingested data. See the DOD oversight record.
Program dossier
No research dossier for this program — dossiers cover 50 of 1,938 programs, the largest fully J-book-detailed lines by FY2026 requested dollars. why no dossier here? →
Primary sources
Open any budget figure for its exact receipt. Verified line items lead with the highlighted government PDF; original spreadsheets download with their budget edition and exhibit in the filename.
Budget totals · TOA sources
FY2026 Department of Defense Budget: RDT&E Programs (R-1) · comptroller.war.gov
Exhibit R-1 · J544
Complete workbook · unchanged saved copy. Saves as PB2026_DoD_R-1_Research-Development-Test-Evaluation.xlsx.
FY2024 Department of Defense Budget: RDT&E Programs (R-1) · comptroller.war.gov
Exhibit R-1 · J518
Complete workbook · unchanged saved copy. Saves as PB2024_DoD_R-1_Research-Development-Test-Evaluation.xlsx.
FY2025 Department of Defense Budget: RDT&E Programs (R-1) · comptroller.war.gov
Exhibit R-1 · J526
Complete workbook · unchanged saved copy. Saves as PB2025_DoD_R-1_Research-Development-Test-Evaluation.xlsx.
Detailed budget justification
The related TOA spreadsheets above use a different accounting basis from R-2/P-40 detail. Their amounts are not assumed to match these detailed sources.
FY2026 Air Force Research and Development Test and Evaluation, Vol. I · www.saffm.hq.af.mil
PDF page 12