Kratos Targets Operational Uses Of Hypersonic Systems Beyond Test

SIMI VALLEY, California—Kratos is looking at ways to operationalize its hypersonic systems developed for testing, as the U.S. government continues to seek methods to field less costly versions of the weapons.

The company is continuing development of its Erinyes hypersonic glide body and Zeus solid rocket motor that is used as part of the Pentagon’s Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) program, with the goal of increasing the overall pace of hypersonic testing.

As the development for test continues, other opportunities are arising based largely in part because of the relatively low price of the system, the company says.

“The cost right now, the full Erinyes-Zeus stacks is less than or equal to $10 million, right? Compare that to other hypersonic capabilities that are still in development,” says Otis Winkler, vice president of corporate development and national security programs for Kratos Defense. “We compare that to other hypersonic capabilities that are still in development—it’s significantly less. So you’ll probably see us starting to operationalize in the same way that we are operationalizing other test assets into real capability that is producible.”

The Pentagon is progressing on a series of hypersonic weapons across the services, though each are at relatively high price points, sparking a push to find cheaper alternatives.

Kratos says it is designing systems looking for that 85% capability the Pentagon is targeting as part of its acquisition reform.

“We don’t want unobtanium. … We want something ready, today, to put in the field at a relatively reasonable cost,” Winkler told Aviation Week on the sidelines of the Reagan National Defense Forum here.

Kratos is not just using its own Erinyes system for MACH-TB, and is including other partner systems as part of the overall indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract including the Hermeus Quarterhorse, systems from Firefly Aerospace and Stratolaunch.

“We need all of that to be able to have the technical and testing cadence to put us back in front of China and Russia with operational capabilities,” Winkler says.

Kratos CEO Eric DeMarco told Aviation Week in March the company is developing a new, secret hypersonic drone program, though the company is not providing specifics.

“We are moving out on our hypersonic portfolio writ large,” Winkler says.

The new system is part of a new franchise for testing, manufacturing and design—“where we are in development is super sensitive,” he says.