Kratos to build military hardware that will directly support US warfighters

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has secured an approximately $35 million production award to manufacture military-grade hardware and related systems for a national security program, the company announced on August 31. The equipment is expected to support warfighters operating directly in the field. Kratos will produce the hardware at a secure facility but has withheld details about the customer, equipment, location, and program for national security and other reasons. Hardware designed for large-scale production Kratos develops and manufactures hardware for the United States and allied national security programs, with its current production work spanning hypersonic systems, counter-unmanned aerial systems, air defense, missiles, radars, and high-powered directed-energy technologies. The latest award falls under the company’s C5ISR business, which produces military-standard hardware and weapon-system components intended to meet demanding operational requirements. Kratos says its approach involves working with customers during the initial engineering and design stages so that systems can subsequently move into production without significant changes. “Kratos is a recognized industry leader in the engineering and large-scale production of military-grade hardware in support of certain of the United States’ and its allies’ most important National Security programs and initiatives,” said Tom Mills, President of Kratos C5ISR. “If a customer wants its product or system engineered correctly up front, for successful, on-schedule, on-budget production, we believe that we are the preferred, go-to partner,” he continued. Recent missile and air-defense awards The unidentified program adds to several national security contracts Kratos has announced over the past year. In July, the company received an approximately $36 million sole-source contract for a new air-defense missile system, with work also assigned to a secure manufacturing facility. Kratos separately secured a $7 million production order in March for a counter-UAS system designed to detect, track, and classify low-profile drones, cruise missiles, and other airborne threats. In August, the U.S. Army’s DEVCOM C5ISR Center selected the company to develop, build, and test an enhanced infrared seeker for the Javelin Close Combat Missile System. That project is intended to replace obsolete elements within the missile’s existing guidance section and produce a seeker ready for future manufacturing. None of these previously announced projects has been publicly connected to the new $35 million award. Production capacity for national security systems Kratos has been expanding its domestic manufacturing infrastructure as demand grows for missile, counter-drone, radar, hypersonic, and air-defense equipment. In July, it opened a 167,000-square-foot facility in Pennsylvania to manufacture and test military hardware, including equipment for directed-energy weapons, missile transporters, mobile launchers, hypersonic systems, and strategic radar platforms. “Kratos’ C5ISR Business is a crown jewel of Kratos and a national asset for our country,” said Eric DeMarco, President and CEO of the company. “Kratos has the workforce, infrastructure, technical capability and past performance qualifications to complete the mission and engineer and build mil-spec hardware and weapon systems correctly the first time for our partners and customers,” he added. Kratos said it would not release additional information about the latest program because of customer and national security restrictions.Get the latest in engineering, tech, space & science - delivered daily to your inbox.Atharva is a full-time content writer with a post-graduate degree in media & amp; entertainment and a graduate degree in electronics & telecommunications. He has written in the sports and technology domains respectively. In his leisure time, Atharva loves learning about digital marketing and watching soccer matches. His main goal behind joining Interesting Engineering is to learn more about how the recent technological advancements are helping human beings on both societal and individual levels in their daily lives.