Pentagon budget 2027: request seeks SATCOM, PNT spending boost

US Airmen assemble a SATCOM Earth Terminal Subsystem (SETSS). (US Air Force)

Pentagon budget officials for fiscal year (FY) 2027 requested USD59.7 billion in research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) and procurement funds, to finance work on satellite communications (satcom); missile tracking; and position, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies.

The Department of Defense (DoD) requested USD8.6 billion for satcom RDT&E and procurement, which is USD4.5 billion more than the USD4.1 billion appropriated by lawmakers for those accounts in FY 2026, according to budget documents released on 21 April.

The USD6.9 billion requested for missile tracking and missile warning (MT/MW) platforms and systems represents a USD2.8 billion uptick compared to the USD4.1 billion approved by Congress the previous fiscal year.

On PNT technologies, DoD officials kept those accounts flat, submitting a USD1.3 billion spending request for FY 2027. However, nearly USD680 million of that funding has been shifted from RDT&E to procurement to purchase of two GPS IIIF satellites in FY 2027, US Air Force budget documents stated. Roughly USD123 million for RDT&E was requested for the GPS IIIF programme, DoD budget documents stated.

The 21 April announcement of the GPS IIIF funding request coincided with the launch of the final, legacy GPS III satellite at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The arrival of GPS III-8 into orbit marked the final piece of the 32-satellite GPS constellation.

The GPS III-8 satellite “provides the current constellation an additional satellite equipped with [military] code technology, which provides GPS capabilities to the warfighter that are three-times more accurate and eight times more resistant to jamming than the previous constellation”, according to a US Space Force (USSF) statement on the launch.