DARPA’s interest in platforms waxes and wanes but is entering a cycle of renewed focus based on a fiscal 2024 budget request that seeks increased funding for a series of flight demonstration projects.

The Pentagon’s advanced research agency is seeking a total of $4.38 billion in fiscal 2024, an increase of 8% from 2023 and greater than the 5% increase in funding provided in 2022.

Some of the increase in fiscal 2024 comes from the initiation of new X-plane programs. DARPA is seeking $22.7 million for conceptual design of a high-speed vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft for special operations missions under the Sprint project and $13.2 million for conceptual design of a ship-based long-endurance VTOL uncrewed aircraft system under the Ancillary project.

Increased funding is sought for other programs moving into later phases. DARPA is seeking $44.5 million for preliminary design of the Liberty Lifter wing-in-ground-effect seaplane strategic airlifter by Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI), and $42.3 million for Aurora to build and begin ground tests of an X-plane designed around active flow control under the Crane project.

Missile demonstrator programs account for other budget increases. DARPA is seeking $81.5 million—more than the two previous years’ funding combined—for the Tactical Boost Glide hypersonic weapon project. The funding would update the glider design to accommodate a new guidance electronics unit into the U.S. Navy variant of the boost-glide weapon and procure long-lead items for a test missile.

Another $44 million is sought for the LongShot program to demonstrate an uncrewed aircraft that is air launched from standoff range by fighters and bombers to ingress and engage targets with air-to-air missiles. The money would fund GA-ASI to build flight-test vehicles, integrate them onto the host aircraft and conduct initial flight demonstrate to validate air-to-air missile separation from the vehicle.

Another fiscal 2024 new start is the Gambit project to demonstrate a rotating detonation engine (RDE) high-speed propulsion system for a standoff strike missile for fourth-generation fighters. The funding would complete conceptual design and fabricate and test an RDE combustor and subscale inlet. The goal of Gambit is to ground test a full-scale propulsion system in flight-representative conditions to pave the way for flight test of a prototype weapon in a future program.

Other new-start programs in the 2024 budget include Artificial Intelligence Reinforcements (AIR), for which $21.1 million is sought. AIR would develop tactical autonomy for multiship, beyond-visual-range air combat. The project is a follow-on to DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution program, which is planned to culminate in 2024 with the flight test of algorithms for within-visual-range autonomy in 2v2 air-combat scenarios involving full-scale aircraft.

Another new start is the Otter project, for which $17.4 million is sought. Otter would develop space propulsion systems to enable operations in orbital domains that are currently inaccessible and provide the ability to “maneuver without regret,” budget documents say. The goal of the program is to build a satellite and conduct a space demonstration.

The Power project is another 2024 new start with $16.4 million sought to complete conceptual design and begin development of airborne optical relays to beam laser energy within a distributed network of persistent high-altitude uncrewed aircraft that can then be redirected to power ground, sea and air platforms. 

DARPA is also seeking a substantial increase in funding—$30 million compared with $3 million in 2023—for the Space-Watch project to provide real-time persistent tracking of objects in low Earth orbit by working with commercial companies to host thousands of low-cost sensors on their space platforms and using automated algorithms to fuse the data.

Across its budget request, DARPA is also seeking funding to start projects to develop machine introspection technologies to enable AI systems to explain their behavior; build-chain visibility technologies to secure the software supply chain from cyber attacks; radio receivers and apertures using quantum sensors operating over a very large frequency range with greater sensitivity than classical systems; and vacuum amplifiers to enable electronic warfare systems able to protect platforms from millimeter-wave missile seekers.