As much as RDT&E may look like a relative winner in budget plans, procurement plans have been scaled back to help meet overall Pentagon budget caps.

MDA Director Vice Adm. James Syring says the agency is accepting some risk in reducing interceptor buys for the Aegis combat missile defense system and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in fiscal 2017.

Substantial hits to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program are among the biggest changes in the fiscal 2017 procurement budget.

The U.S. Air Force insists that the classified bomber program’s schedule has not slipped, but the service has adopted a new independent cost estimate.

The U.S. Navy’s fiscal 2017 plan maintains its funding for carriers and destroyers but – as recently directed by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter – cuts down on the number of Littoral Combat Ships and fast frigate successor vessels.

Under the plan, aeronautics funding would break the $1 billion barrier for the first time in more than two decades, peaking at more than $1.3 billion in 2023.

The budget plan appears to contain no real surprises except an apparent shift away from the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that has been a centerpiece in President Barack Obama’s space policy.

The U.S. Navy plans to buy 94 aircraft in fiscal 2017, compared to the 153 the service had included in its fiscal 2016 spending plan.