Latest news with #Kratos
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Two Secretive Loyal Wingman Drones Aimed At European Market In Development From Kratos
Two new drone designs, Apollo and Athena, are in development at Kratos with a particular focus on collaborative operations with other crewed and uncrewed aircraft, and an eye toward sales in Europe. The modular Apollo and Athena designs are smaller than the company's XQ-58 Valkyrie, and could be configured to carry weapons, electronic warfare systems, or additional sensors. Steve Fendley, President of Kratos' Unmanned Systems Division, shared details about Apollo and Athena in an interview with TWZ's Howard Altman on the sidelines of the annual Modern Day Marine exposition last week. In December 2024, Kratos confirmed to us that it secured contracts for both drones, but said it could not provide any additional information. During a quarterly earnings call in August 2024, Kratos CEO Eric DeMarco had disclosed the Apollo contract and said one for Athena was expected in the coming months. The company has yet to release imagery of either design. 'I can't say too much, but there they are high-subsonic systems,' Fendley told TWZ. 'They're quite a bit smaller than the [XQ-58] Valkyrie. So, much smaller footprint.' Fendley also said that Kratos was targeting a sub-$5 million unit price for both Apollo and Athena, which have highly modular designs to allow them to be configured for multiple mission sets. Per Kratos' website at the time of writing, the company says the Valkyrie is 30 feet long, has a 27-foot wingspan, a dry weight of 2,500 pounds, and a maximum takeoff weight of 6,000 pounds. The drone also has a stated cruising speed of 0.72 Mach, a maximum speed of 0.85 Mach, and a maximum range of 3,000 nautical miles. In 2022, the company also announced it had developed a Block 2 version with a heavier overall weight, but did not provide a specific weight figure. A number of additional variants have been developed since then, but specific details about their configurations remain limited. Kratos has also said in the past that its goal is to eventually drive down Valkyrie's unit cost to around $2 million. However, last year, the company told TWZ that the price tag for a single XQ-58 was still between $4 and $6 million, depending on the exact configuration. In general, Kratos has historically focused on lower-cost designs and ones that can be manufactured relatively quickly. Apollo and Athena 'are designed to be hard to detect,' Fendley added, but did not elaborate on. There are various ways to reduce an aircraft's radar cross-section, as well as its infrared, auditory, and visual signatures. For instance, the external moldline, the shape and position of the engine intake and exhaust, and other features of the XQ-58 contribute to that design's low-observability (stealthiness). 'The big focus' with both of the new drones 'is interactive collaboration of multiple aircraft at the same time,' Fendley explained. 'So multiple uncrewed aircraft at the same time, collaborating, [and] performing' missions with, 'basically, any fighter or attack aircraft in the inventory, that's that's the intent.' 'So joining those [Apollo and Athena] aircraft, or even Valkyrie, up with a fifth-gen[eration stealth] fighter, you have some capability to get to go out in front. You have some capability to basically light up the enemy,' he continued. 'But what's really interesting, when you combine it with a [non-stealthy] fourth-gen or even a third-gen system – which, of course, the U.S. doesn't do much of that anymore, but the international customers do – what you really do is you substantially increase the capability of that third or fourth-gen system because now it has off-board capability that's not adding risk to that system.' 'So let's pick an F-16. The F-16 can have a Valkyrie or an Athena or Apollo doing part of a mission that it normally would do, but it would have to be within a risk area to be able to conduct that part,' he added. Speaking in more general terms about drones with the kinds of capabilities that Athena and Apollo are expected to offer, 'one use case is a system that's hard to detect … can, from a, let's say, from an EW [electronic warfare] perspective, can detect potential threats or potential targets of interest without being detected itself, which again, brings a capability that you can't do with a third or fourth-gen fighter system,' Fendley said. 'The other use case is if you have a group of them [the drones] and a handful of them are configured for EW, and a handful of them are carrying actual weapons – either air-to-surface, air-to-ground, or air-to-air – the sensor system can identify the target, can point out the target, basically pass the coordinates, and then the weapons aircraft can conduct the termination mission.' 'One of the other things that allows us to be more cost-effective than others is we don't put all that on one aircraft,' he continued. 'Let's just talk in rough numbers. Let's say there are six useful mission systems. And, again, rough numbers. Let's call three of them sensor-type systems, three of them weapon-type systems. We won't put all six on any one aircraft. We'll distribute that. It allows each aircraft to be much less expensive. It also allows you in a large mission, it allows you to distribute your risk and make it very hard for the enemy to decide 'do I want to shoot down a sensor airplane or a weapons airplane?'' For years now, TWZ has been highlighting the inherent benefits of distributing systems and associated roles among individual drones in a fully networked swarm or other collaborative environment. Beyond helping to reduce the cost of each uncrewed aircraft, including just by allowing them to be smaller and less complex, this also offers valuable operational flexibility since different drones can be performing multiple tasks simultaneously. It also means that the loss of some number of drones is less likely to immediately render the entire group ineffective. That stealthy 'loyal wingman' drones that also feature high degrees of autonomy and collaborative capabilities could be especially valuable force multipliers when paired with fourth-generation crewed combat jets is something TWZ has noted in the past, as well. This was a particular key point in a detailed case we previously laid out for how the trilateral Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) defense cooperation agreement could offer an ideal framework for the shared development of loyal wingmen-type drones. In speaking with TWZ, Fendley also talked about out how the modularity of the Apollo and Athena drones could allow them to be better tailored to a customer's particular needs from a regional perspective. 'The European market is very different than the Pacific markets. The European market is more interested in, let's call it, … sensor capability, weapons capability doesn't need the long legs, the long endurance that you do for the Pacific,' he explained. 'What that allows you to do is that allows you to really load that airplane up with more weapons, for example, than you would for an aircraft that's going to the Pacific, but has to fly a long way, so it's carrying fuel. So that's kind of the trade there.' Right now, Kratos is working on Apollo and Athena configurations 'to focus more on that European market,' he added. There is already extensive work ongoing on various tiers of drone 'wingmen' across Europe, including in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, and Turkey. This reflects a global trend, as well. However, if Kratos can offer a particularly low-cost option that is readily adaptable to multiple mission sets, it could be very attractive to smaller air forces looking to bolster their airpower capabilities and overall capacity, and that cannot afford more exquisite crewed or uncrewed platforms. The core attributes of Apollo and Athena could be of interest to larger air arms, as well. The U.S. Air Force has indicated that it may now be leaning toward cheaper and simpler designs for the second iterative development phase, or Increment 2, of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Kratos, which was notably absent from the CCA program's Increment 1 competition, has said on several occasions that it is interested in taking part in Increment 2. General Atomics and Anduril are currently developing designs, now designated YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, respectively, under Increment 1. The Air Force has also previously said that Increment 2 could be the first phase of the CCA program to weave in foreign participation. The U.S. Marine Corps has separately said it is looking into whether certain roles and missions that are typically associated with larger, more exquisite drones, could be performed, at least in part, by smaller designs. It's worth noting here that the Air Force and the Marine Corps are also currently the only two known operators of Kratos' XQ-58. The U.S. Navy has also outlined a vision for future carrier-capable CCA-type drones that would be low-cost enough to be 'consumable,' and then expended as one-way attack munitions, or as targets in training or testing, at the end of relatively short service lives. CCA-related work across the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy is directly intertwined via a joint service agreement. With Kratos now having secured contracts for both Apollo and Athena, more details about both of these specific designs may begin to emerge. Contact the author: joe@
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (NasdaqGS:KTOS) Reports Increased Q1 Earnings And Confirms 2025 Guidance
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions recently announced promising first quarter results with a revenue increase to USD 303 million and net income rising to USD 5 million, fostering a supportive environment for its stock price, which climbed 28% last month. The company's expanded guidance for the second quarter and full year reflected optimism that may have bolstered investor confidence amid a generally positive market driven by easing U.S.-UK trade tensions. Notably, the expansion of automated truck systems and a recent $30 million air defense contract potentially supported the surge in Kratos' share price, countering the broader market's more modest 1% growth. We've identified 1 possible red flag for Kratos Defense & Security Solutions that you should be aware of. Find companies with promising cash flow potential yet trading below their fair value. The recent developments surrounding Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, including their substantial revenue and net income growth, have set a positive tone for investor sentiment. This progress, coupled with expanded guidance and new contracts, suggests a promising future trajectory for the company. Over the past three years, Kratos' total return, including share price and dividends, reached a substantial 180.19%. This demonstrates a significant outperformance compared to a generally positive market environment over the same period. In the previous year, Kratos outpaced both the broader U.S. market and the US Aerospace & Defense industry, which recorded returns of 7.7% and 19.4%, respectively. This suggests that the company's strategic initiatives and external market conditions have potentially contributed to sustained investor confidence. The anticipated growth in defense budgets and new contracts like the MACH-TB hypersonic contract may have positive implications for future revenue and earnings forecasts. Today's share price of US$34.42 is slightly below the analyst consensus price target of US$34.82, presenting a 1.1% potential upside. This modest gap implies that analysts on average regard the company as fairly valued, albeit with room for potential reassessment based on forthcoming performance outcomes and market conditions. In summary, while short-term gains have been encouraging, Kratos' long-term strategies and industry positioning remain pivotal to its future growth prospects. Assess Kratos Defense & Security Solutions' future earnings estimates with our detailed growth reports. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include NasdaqGS:KTOS. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Kratos to Webcast Annual Shareholders Meeting Featuring CEO Business-Wide Update
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. SAN DIEGO, May 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: KTOS), a Technology Company in the Defense, National Security and Global Markets, today announced it will webcast a special presentation from President and CEO Eric DeMarco as part of its 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The webcast will be open to the public and will take place on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. PDT. During the webcast, Mr. DeMarco will provide a comprehensive business-wide update covering Kratos' strategic priorities, operational highlights, technology initiatives, and market outlook across all divisions. The presentation will also highlight the company's progress in hypersonic systems, unmanned platforms, propulsion, space-based capabilities, and dual-use technologies. Shareholders who have logged into the meeting with their 16-digit Control Number will have the opportunity to submit questions relevant to the matters properly addressed during the meeting after the formal business of the meeting has been conducted. Instructions for submitting questions will be provided to shareholders once logged into the meeting. The Annual Meeting is open to shareholders of record as of March 17, 2025 (Record Date) and/or their designated representatives. Interested persons who were not shareholders as of the close of business on the Record Date may view, but not participate in, the Annual Meeting at Webcast Details: Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2025 Time: 9:00 a.m. PDT Registration Link: Open to: All interested parties About Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: KTOS) is a technology, products, system and software company addressing the defense, national security, and commercial markets. Kratos makes true internally funded research, development, capital and other investments, to rapidly develop, produce and field solutions that address our customers' mission critical needs and requirements. At Kratos, affordability is a technology, and we seek to utilize proven, leading edge approaches and technology, not unproven bleeding edge approaches or technology, with Kratos' approach designed to reduce cost, schedule and risk, enabling us to be first to market with cost effective solutions. We believe that Kratos is known as an innovative disruptive change agent in the industry, a company that is an expert in designing products and systems up front for successful rapid, large quantity, low cost future manufacturing which is a value add competitive differentiator for our large traditional prime system integrator partners and also to our government and commercial customers. Kratos intends to pursue program and contract opportunities as the prime or lead contractor when we believe that our probability of win (PWin) is high and any investment required by Kratos is within our capital resource comfort level. We intend to partner and team with a large, traditional system integrator when our assessment of PWin is greater or required investment is beyond Kratos' comfort level. Kratos' primary business areas include virtualized ground systems for satellites and space vehicles including software for command & control (C2) and telemetry, tracking and control (TT&C), jet powered unmanned aerial drone systems, hypersonic vehicles and rocket systems, propulsion systems for drones, missiles, loitering munitions, supersonic systems, space craft and launch systems, C5ISR and microwave electronic products for missile, radar, missile defense, space, satellite, counter UAS, directed energy, communication and other systems, and virtual & augmented reality training systems for the warfighter. For more information, visit
Forbes
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Ukraine's New Strike Drone Flies 1,000 Miles With A Large Warhead
Kratos' ramp-launched Valkyrie drone. U.A. Air Force photo One of Ukraine's newest strike drones—the UAC FP-1—travels as far as 1,000 miles with a warhead weighing up to 250 pounds, likely making it significantly more powerful than the roughly similar, but years older, UkrSpecSystems PD-1. The latter ranges maybe 600 miles, presumably with a lighter warhead. Ukrainian-Czech UAC tweaked a lot of small things to extend the propeller-driven FP-1's range and payload compared to older drones. The biggest refinement is the most obvious: the FP-1 doesn't have landing gear. Instead of taking off on its own wheels like the PD-1 does, the FP-1 blasts off from an angled ramp, propelled by a fuselage-mounted rocket. The new drone made its official public debut at a recent exhibition in Kyiv. But production actually began last year—and the type has already seen combat. Ukraine boasts an array of domestically produced strike drones, and routinely strikes targets such as air bases and oil refineries hundreds of miles inside Russia. The deepest strikes are the most demanding, of course, and usually fall to the small number of Aeroprakt A-22 sport planes that the Ukrainians have converted into far-flying attack drones by replacing the human pilot with remote and autonomous control. But the A-22s, each costing $80,000 or more before the addition of drone controls and warheads, are an awkward solution to Ukraine's long-range strike problem. They're designed to be manned planes and have voluminous cockpits. They are, in other words, overbuilt for what they do as drones. That might explain why an A-22 or similar sport-plane drone evidently ranges just 800 miles or so with a 220-pound warhead. The FP-1, which might cost more than $100,000, should go farther with a similar payload. It helps that UAC omitted the landing gear, which on most manned planes accounts for up to 5% of the overall weight. If the gear folds up into the fuselage for maximum aerodynamic efficiency, it also consumes a lot of internal volume. It's not for no reason that, when U.S. firm Kratos developed a landing-gear version of its ramp-launched Valkyrie attack drone, it also cut the drone's payload from four bombs (weighing 1,000 pounds in total) to just two bombs (together weighing 500 pounds). There's an even better way to launch a drone: mount it on a rolling trolley that the drone jettisons on takeoff. That way, it can build up a high takeoff speed on a runway—and omit the rear-mounted rocket—without also having to lug around heavy landing gear. This only works for reusable drones if they also have internal parachutes they can deploy in order to float back down to their bases after a mission. The FP-1 is a one-way attack drone that slams into its target and explodes; it's not expected to come home.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Kratos Close To 'A Couple' Final Versions Of XQ-58 Valkyrie For The Marines
Kratos' XQ-58 Valkyrie continues to rapidly evolve, with the company being close to final configurations of the drone for the USMC, which has been testing it extensively. This comes as the USAF also now appears to be looking for less expensive designs for the second increment of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Kratos has historically focused on lower-cost designs that can be manufactured quickly, which they hope will put them in a good position for breaking their way into the Air Force's high-stakes CCA program. Currently, Anduril and General Atomics are providing aircraft for CCA's Increment One. TWZ talked with Kratos Defense President of Unmanned Systems Division, Steve Fendley, about Valkyrie developments, as well as some of the company's other combat drone programs, on the show floor of the annual Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, D.C., last week. 'So we're obviously, we've been doing a lot of development work for the Marines, a lot of integration of mission systems, a lot of ground and flight test of those mission systems,' Fendley said. 'And that's that's continued to where we're, we're pretty close to having a couple final versions of the aircraft.' Fendley continued, 'So we've been working PAACK-P [Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer program] for a number of years, and like I say, we've got a couple mission configurations of the system that we've developed for that, for the Marines, for that purpose. And those exist. You know, those exist today. We're obviously producing the aircraft in Oklahoma City on a regular basis. So we're basically teed up to be able to accept a more substantial production-type order.' It's unclear what the two variants will be, but we do know Kratos has previously said it was working on at least five XQ-58 variants, including one that was optimized for electronic attack. The Marines have been testing XQ-58s with precursor electronic warfare payloads. This will likely result in an electronic warfare variant that you can read about here. The ability to conduct kinetic strikes would also be high on the list, but we cannot say for sure if that will be one of the two mission configurations. There is also the shadowy XQ-58B designation, and the exact configuration it represents remains unclear. When asked about the B model, Fendley would not address it directly. For the USMC, the XQ-58 makes a lot of sense, especially for its ability to be launched and recovered from very austere locations that do not feature a runway. The base model Valkyrie launches via rocket booster from a rail system and is recovered via parachute. Now the company has put forward two new capabilities that will allow the XQ-58 to be launched from traditional runways. One is a wheeled launch trolley that can put a standard XQ-58 into the air via a runway, but the aircraft will still recover via parachute. The other and newest adaptation of the Valkyrie sees it gaining landing gear, so it can operate like a normal aircraft from a fixed runway. This has certain benefits, including enhanced sortie rates, but it also has drawbacks. Fendley says the landing gear model will sacrifice payload bay capacity for its landing gear, with the ability to carry two Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) internally instead of four on the rocket and trolley-launched models. It can still be rocket-launched, though, as it has the same gross weight as the standard version. This also opens the possibility for rocket-launched, but runway-recovered operations. Regardless, being able to more seamlessly operate alongside its manned counterparts where runways are available is a huge plus for the Valkyrie family and opens the door larger for a possible USAF CCA contract win in the future. The landing gear-equipped version of the Valkyrie is slated to make its first flight this year. The trolley-launched configuration was first demonstrated last year. 'We're continuing to work with the Air Force evolving different versions of the Valkyrie, and of course, not necessarily related to Valkyrie, but the Air Force's CCA program is obviously well underway, and we're obviously still very, very interested in that,' Fendley said. 'Can't talk much about that, of course, that's classified, but very high level of interest from the company on that program. I think you've probably heard recently that there's probably going to be a focus there on a lower-cost system. And you know, of course, we're optimized [for that]. That's been our focus the whole time – 'how do we optimize performance per cost?' … Yeah, we're very interested in pursuing it… we are aggressively pursuing interest in that program.' Fendley elaborated further on how the company, which is best known for its target drones, has deep roots in balancing cost against finite requirements: 'I would say the Kratos' approach to developing systems in the first place, which is we always… pick a cost target, and then we'll allocate that cost target across the subsystems that make up a system. And as the designers and developers are going through developing it, they keep closing a loop on that cost, so when they come up with something and say, 'oops, this is 10% more than our cost target,' well, we throw it out and say, 'no, refine it. We've got to get to this cost.' So it's specifically designed to meet a certain cost level. And that's really our major discriminator against the traditional primes.' We also asked if Kratos put forward a proposed aircraft for CCA increment one. Here what Fendley said: 'It's a complicated question because of the stages that occurred on that, the development of that program. There are multiple configurations of CCA-type aircraft that Kratos has… We've made those known. However, the specific public requirements for Increment One vary a little bit from the traditional Kratos approach, which is more cost optimized… It's a more exquisite type approach than we traditionally take.' Finally, we also got an update on Thanatos, the company's stealthy drone that remains largely shrouded in secrecy from Fendley, who said: 'Thanatos is progressing well. There's some international interest in it, too. We don't have approval yet to do any kind of export, but we may get that… I can't give specific details on the aircraft or the specific customers, but it's progressing well, and it's a unique capability, but again, tied to the high performance per cost ratio.' The initial flight testing of the shadowy Thanatos was completed late last year, and similar testing of a fully mission-configured aircraft is now quickly approaching, Fendley continued. 'So treat this as the basic aircraft, the non-fully-mission aircraft was effectively completed late last year and looked very good. And as we're moving forward, it's more integration of mission systems and integration of autonomy elements.' Fendley said testing of this more production representative craft would begin in the third or fourth quarter of this year. Howard Altman contributed to this story. Contact the editor: Tyler@
