Kratos Defense & Security Solutions [KTOS] has been tapped by the U.S. Air Force to develop a fast, long-range unmanned strike aircraft that costs as little as $2 million per copy.
Kratos recently was awarded a $40.8 million, 30-month cost-share contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for the Low-Cost Attritable Strike Unmanned Aerial System Demonstration (LCASD) program. The company will receive $7.3 million in government funding and contribute $33.5 million of its own money. Government funding could rise to about $100 million if AFRL proceeds with plans for technology maturation “spirals,” Kratos wrote in a news release last week.
The Air Force envisions that an LCASD demonstrator vehicle could carry two 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs internally, fly missions of up to 1,500 nautical miles at speeds of up to Mach 0.9, perform with “extreme agility” to evade hostile missiles, and provide a “runway-independent takeoff and landing capability,” Kratos said.
The program’s long-term goal is to achieve an acquisition cost of $3 million per copy for a block order of 99 or fewer units, and $2 million per copy for a block order of 100 or more units. Due to the relatively low cost, “loss of aircraft could be tolerated,” the Air Force wrote in a statement of objectives last year. “However, these aircraft would be intended for reuse with limited life/sorties.”
Eric Demarco, Kratos president and chief executive officer, said “we believe that this government-industry partnership will result in the demonstration of arguably the world’s most capable and affordable long-range strike UAV.”
Kratos, through its Sacramento, Calif.-based Composite Engineering company, was one of seven bidders for the LCASD contract. Earlier this year, Kratos was among four firms awarded contracts for DARPA’s Gremlins program, which will develop technologies and systems enabling aircraft to launch volleys of low-cost, reusable UAVs and retrieve them in mid-air.