American Defense firm Kratos has signed a $1.5 billion contract, its largest ever, with the Department of Defense for a low-cost hypersonic testbed and related services, including subscale, full-scale and air launch services.
The American technology and defense company Kratos signed a contract with the Department of Defense on Jan. 06, 2025, for “systems engineering, integration, and testing, to include integrated subscale, full-scale, and air launch services to address the need to affordably increase hypersonic flight test cadence”. The contract, worth a maximum of $1.45 billion over a 5-year period, if all options are exercised, falls under Task Area 1 of the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) 2.0 program.
MACH-TB
First initiated by the U.S. Navy in 2022, the MACH-TB program is now in its second phase, after the MACH-TB 1.0 resulted in over 25 flight tests and the creation a hypersonic boost glide testbed. The 2.0 phase will see that technology transition from design and concept demonstration to full-flight test capacity.
The program is meant to support the National Hypersonic Initiative 2.0 by creating an affordable flight test bed to rapidly increase hypersonic flight test capacity. The objective of MACH-TB 2.0 is to provide an affordable bridge between hypersonic ground tests and system level flight tests and reduce overall hypersonic development risks and time.
The team led by Kratos includes several other defense companies, including Leidos and Rocket Lab. The company’s CEO Eric DeMarco remarked that “Kratos is honored to receive the largest contract award in our company’s history, a testament of the value Kratos’ employees and team bring both to our Company and United States National Security.”
In December 2024, Kratos also announced it was awarded a $6.5 million contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to provide flight testing for hypersonic research supporting future weapon systems. The company said it will leverage flight proven, affordable hypersonic test beds and sounding rocket-based launch vehicles to fulfill various flight experiment requirements and validate modeling and simulation tools rapidly and affordably for future hypersonic flight testing.
U.S. officials argued in the past that the limited test infrastructure hindered the development of hypersonic systems and the nation was falling behind China and Russia which already fielded hypersonic weapons. Flying low-cost testbeds like the one that Kratos is going to produce under the MACH-TB contract are key assets for testing at hypersonic speeds above Mach 5.
Kratos Erinyes hypersonic test vehicle
Kratos revealed last year a successful flight of its Erinyes hypersonic test vehicle for a Missile Defense Agency experiment. The vehicle flew for the first time in June 2024 and the company confirmed it went over Mach 5, which is considered the boundary of the hypersonic speeds range.
Kratos says it developed Erinyes in three years for under $15 million, with a mix of both internal investment and congressional funding. According to company officials, the system was developed in response to the DoD’s concerns about the hypersonic test infrastructure.
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“With the recent successes of our low-cost Erinyes Hypersonic Flyer and Zeus Solid Rocket Motors, Kratos is a leader in the testing and fielding of hypersonic systems,” said Dave Carter, President of Kratos Defense and Rocket Support Services Division. “We are very excited to bring this unmatched expertise to the MACH-TB 2.0 program.”
Carter also highlighted the Erinyes’ affordability, as the vehicle without its rocket motor only costs around $5 million. He also added, well before the award of the new MACH-TB 2.0 contract, that he expects Erinyes to play a key role in the program moving forward, potentially flying experiments already in 2025 or 2026.
A spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense that Erinyes is just “one of the hypersonic frontends” planned to fly under the MACH-TB program and “[t]here will be others as well.” Erinyes, meanwhile, is planned to fly for the second time this year.
Among Kratos’ current development programs there is the Zeus rocket motor, designed to provide greater thrust and range at a lower cost. Similarly to Erinyes, the company sees the system as a response to a need for affordable launch vehicle propulsion and it will eventually be a propulsion option for Erinyes.
Kratos Defense
Founded only in 1994, Kratos has rapidly made a name for itself in the defense world. The San Diego-based company is behind the AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System (LaWS) tested from 2014 on the USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15, formerly LPD-15) amphibious vessel. The AN/SEQ-3, whose operating power is unknown but estimated to be in the range of 15-50 kiloWatt (kW), was used by the USS Ponce and, after 2017, by its replacement USS Portland (LPD-27) to engage drones, small aircraft and high-speed boats.
After buying the Detroit-based small turbojet manufacturer Technical Directions Inc. (TDI) on Feb. 24, 2020, Kratos provides the TDI-J85 for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Gray Wolf, a low-cost cruise missile built by Northrop Grumman with a range of over 250 NM (460km) and that can be used in a networked swarm like the AFRL Golden Horde initiative.
Kratos also produces the XQ-58 Valkyrie (initially known as XQ-222), an experimental stealth unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) built for the U.S. Air Force’s Low Cost Attritable Strike Demonstrator (LCASD) program. The aircraft first flew on Mar. 05, 2019. Kratos officials have said they can produce 250 to 500 XQ-58 per year at a unit cost of $4 million for 50 airframes a year, or less than $2 million for over 100 planes per year.
The XQ-58 has been shown to be able to release an Altius-600 small UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) from its internal weapons bay, and it’s being developed for a future use as a SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) platform, and even as a air-to-air UCAV, carrying AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles.
Kratos has been working also on other hypersonic programs, beyond the aforementioned Erinyes and Zeus. These include a range of services for commercial and military customers. The company started out providing its sounding rocket technology to support the MDA’s and the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s work on the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Since then, Kratos supported various hypersonic experiments and is now also on contract with the AFRL for the Mayhem program, expected to develop a hypersonic ISR and strike platform.
