Kratos scores $447M Space Force award for missile tracking ground system
SATELLITE 2026 — The Space Force has awarded Kratos Technology and Training Solutions a new award worth up to $446.8 million to build the ground system for the service’s medium Earth orbit (MEO) constellation to track ballistic and hypersonic cruise missiles.
Kratos Technology and Training Solutions will support launch of the first two iterations of the Space Force’s Resilient Missile Warning Tracking (MWT) architecture in MEO, called Epoch 1 and 2, under the Ground Management and Integration (GMI) Other Transaction Authority agreement, which was formalized March 17. Kratos will manage their operations at a corresponding ground-based Space Operations Center, according to a Space Systems Command (SSC) announcement.
The award to Kratos is a follow-on to an original $55 million task order awarded to Parsons Corporation in April 2023 “to develop hardware and software solutions” and “outfit” the Space Operations Center to “enable an Epoch 1 initial launch capability,” an SSC spokesperson told Breaking Defense in an email.
“The recent Ground Management and Integration contract award builds upon the original contract to support Epoch 1, Epoch 2, and future Epoch launches and operations for MEO space vehicles (SV) currently on contract in development and production, as well as future SVs to create a resilient MWT architecture,” the spokesperson added.
The Space Force now is planning a “baseline” constellation of about 30 Resilient MWT MEO satellites. MEO lies between the upper edge of low Earth orbit at 2,000 kilometers (1,242.7 miles) above the Earth and geosynchronous orbit at 35,786 kilometers (22,236.4 miles). The program is one of three separate missile warning/tracking efforts being managed by the service, all of which are supporting the Trump administration’s ambitious Golden Dome initiative.
The service awarded contracts to Raytheon Intelligence & Space and Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems in January 2023 to build Epoch 1 prototypes. In June 2023, SSC awarded a $29 million Epoch 1 sensor payload design contract to L3Harris Technologies. However, in June 2024 SSC booted Raytheon from the program citing technical failures and cost/schedule growth, and in October 2024 awarded $386 million to Millennium Space Systems for an additional six satellites to make up the total of 12 Epoch 1 birds.
In June 2025, SSC awarded BAE Systems $1.2 billion to build 10 satellites for the second-generation Epoch 2 birds.
The first set of nine Epoch 1 satellites are scheduled to launch early in calendar year 2027. The service expects a second set of Epoch 1 satellites to be delivered in fiscal 2028, and the first of the Epoch 2 satellites in FY29.
