Submunitions

Submunitions, Air Force program element PE 0604604F, funds Project Chicken Little (PCL) through the Joint Smart Munitions Test and Evaluation project. It falls under the Research, Development, Test & Evaluation, Air Force appropriation and Budget Activity 5, System Development and Demonstration. The budget places it in this category because it has passed Milestone B and is conducting engineering and manufacturing development work toward validated requirements before full-rate production. PCL provides rapid-reaction signature exploitation and test expertise to warfighters, capability developers, and allied and coalition forces.

Established in 1985, PCL advances smart munitions, seekers, sensors, and their platforms while addressing networked weapons and emerging targeting concepts. Its work helps determine how weapons and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems can detect, classify, and act against vehicles, theater air defense units, protected structures, and associated equipment. PCL studies the physical characteristics and vulnerabilities of real foreign threat systems, then supplies data for high-fidelity models that predict sensor performance, target vulnerability, and weapon effectiveness. These assessments help developers reduce acquisition risk and help operators evaluate options against high-value targets.

PCL collects high-resolution, multispectral signatures with ground-, air-, and space-based sensors. Targets include newly obtained systems and existing assets maintained to remain signature-representative; tests may include camouflage, concealment, and deception and operation under enemy concepts of operations. Although exploitation generally occurs within the United States, PCL can conduct overseas collections when missions require them. The program also performs target geometric modeling, evaluates ways to improve air capabilities against hard and deeply buried targets, and tests seekers and targeting technologies in representative environments.

Project Chicken Little system exploitation and test events supports quarterly FY 2027 events against high-value threat systems in varied environments using advanced and developmental seekers and sensors. It also plans captive-carry flight tests and signature collection to evaluate seeker and sensor technologies. Results serve rapid-reaction performance analyses for immediate or urgent Combatant Command and Air Force major-command needs. PCL additionally refines methods for ISR testing and captures and catalogs multispectral signatures of asymmetric threat unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

Chicken Little UAS/ACOUSTIC Week is the FY 2027 expansion of Acoustic Week. It provides a joint-service forum for demonstrating developmental and operational acoustic sensors against U.S., coalition, and foreign national ground targets, including tests involving widely proliferated and asymmetric threat UAS sensor platforms. It follows FY 2026 Sensor Week, a biennial air and ground demonstration and validation forum for candidate seeker, sensor, and ISR technologies. The schedule continues alternating Sensor Week and UAS/Acoustic Week through FY 2031.

Threat fleet relevance supports acquiring new and emerging threat vehicles and high-fidelity decoys, then sustaining their signature quality for credible systems development and testing. Test and analysis covers in-house ground and flight testing, studies, analyses, model building, and simulation by the 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base; its 96th Cyberspace Test Group and 46th Test Squadron serve as the program office. Management services supports that in-house test organization. In FY 2027, PCL will continue developing, validating, and accrediting computer models for target vulnerability and weapon effectiveness in support of warfighter requirements.

PCL is a Department of Defense focal point for joint signature collection, exploitation, and dissemination. Its customers include Defense and service intelligence centers, the Joint Technical Coordinating Group that develops Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manuals, Combatant Commands, Air Force major commands, and the Air Force Weapons School. Target and warhead analysis, signature testing, and captive-carry flight tests are scheduled to continue through FY 2031. The FY 2027 funding increase over FY 2026 is attributed to general inflation.