The program will serve as early risk reduction for employment of CCA’s with crewed aircraft,” according to budget justification documents.Ĭross-functional teams will be charged with conducting analyses, demonstrations and experiments to develop and iterate concepts of operations “to provide solutions to current and future air superiority capability gaps,” per the documents. Funding provides program management and test support, operational concepts and studies, and infrastructure investment for information technology, test, and training. “The program activities will reduce risk to operations of CCA employment with crewed aircraft. Meanwhile, a new Experimental Operations Unit program will focus on doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policy concepts related to the CCA drones. Annual funding would ramp up to more than $3 billion in fiscal 2028. The Air Force is requesting $392 million for the main CCA budget activity line in fiscal 2024. The program “will conduct analyses, identify technology candidates, perform concept refinement studies, development, integration, prototyping, and demonstrations to reduce risk and mature CCA concepts and air superiority related technologies in support of the NGAD family of systems,” according to the planning blueprint.Ĭoncept exploration, integration studies, technology risk reduction and prototyping are slated to begin in the first quarter of fiscal 2024 and run through the end of fiscal 2028 - the last year covered in the newly released budget justification documents. Funding provides information technology/test/training infrastructure investments, operational concept exploration, technology studies, multi-domain integration, operational assessments, architecture development, and multi-level prototyping as well as program management support.” “Activities will include the employment of digital acquisitions through the application of digital engineering, agile software development, and open systems architectures. Over the next five years, the CCA program “matures and leverages relevant Science and Technology investments to reduce risk by conducting targeted development, integration and test activities,” per the budget justification books. In fiscal 2024-2028, the service intends to invest about $5.8 billion in research, development, testing and evaluation for the main collaborative combat aircraft program, plus another $400 million or so for an experimental operations unit and an autonomy testbed that will support the initiative. The Air Force is currently planning for 1,000 such systems. The CCA drones are expected to serve as robotic wingmen for Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter jets and other manned aircraft. The Air Force plans to spend more than $6 billion on a “collaborative combat aircraft” program and related projects over the next five years, according to newly released budget justification documents.
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