Kratos to demonstrate low cost strike UAV

Kratos Defense and Security Solutions has beaten seven other companies to win a contract to demonstrate a lot cost, high speed, strike UAV to the Air Force. The contract is structured as a cost share contract, in which the government will pay $7.3M and Kratos will invest $33.5M. That will allow them to retain hardware, software, data and other equipment and rights. Future technology maturation could lead to as much as $100M in contracts.

The design will be a configurable design that will allow the same aircraft to fly NOE, high altitude cruise, DCA, OCA, SEAD, and DEAD.

UAS Acquisition Cost: $3 million or less for the first unit up to 99 units, and $2 million or less for 100 or greater unit quantity purchases.
1,500 nautical mile mission radius with a 500 lb. payload.
Capable of Mach 0.9 Dash.
Maximum G load limits, maneuver rates, and subsystem environmental suitability.
Internal weapons capability; sized to carry and deliver at least two GBU-39 small diameter bombs.
Runway Independent Take-off and Landing capability.
Emphasis on the use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) materials, sub-systems, manufacturing processes, and open mission system architecture concepts.
Tactical consideration of the vehicle shape, elimination of gaps and mismatches, and aero-structural inlet integration.

ir.kratosdefense.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

One of their Board of Directors Mr. DeMarco served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Titan. Prior to joining Titan, Mr. DeMarco served in a variety of public accounting positions, primarily focusing on large multinational corporations and publicly traded companies. Mr. DeMarco has served as Chairman of the Board of WaveStream Corporation and currently serves on the board of directors of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. and nLight Corporation. Mr. DeMarco holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Finance, summa cum laude, from the University of New Hampshire.

Legal Controversies

As a public military contractor the company employed some of the personnel who were implicated in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. Involving mostly Titan and CACI International employees, the U.S. Army "found that contractors were involved in 36 percent of the [Abu Ghraib] proven incidents and identified 6 employees as individually culpable".[2] None of these personnel were prosecuted.[2]

In May 2004, Titan employee Adel Nakhla, an Egyptian-born American citizen, was terminated from his job, after he admitted he held down inmates that were "nude, handcuffed to each other and placed in sexual positions" (as described by the Taguba Report).

The company was in the process of being acquired by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, but the attempted merger fell through on June 26, 2004:

Lockheed Martin Corporation announced that it has terminated the merger agreement with The Titan Corporation because Titan did not satisfy all the closing conditions on or before June 25, 2004. Under the terms of the amended merger agreement, either party could terminate the merger agreement if Titan either (i) had not obtained written confirmation from the Department of Justice that the investigation of alleged Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations was resolved as to Titan and the Department did not intend to pursue any claims against Titan; or (ii) Titan had not entered into a plea agreement on or prior to June 25, 2004, provided that the terminating party had not contributed to the failure to consummate the merger through a breach of its obligations in any material respect. Titan did not satisfy either requirement.

On March 2, 2005, the company admitted to illegally providing $2 million to the 2001 re-election campaign of President Mathieu Kérékou of Benin, and agreed to pay $28.5 million in fines and civil penalties.[3] Titan pleaded guilty and paid the largest penalty under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in history for bribery and filing false tax returns.[2]
Titan Corp briefly partnered with SkyWay Communications[4][5] and owned stock in several other corporations related to SkyWay. SkyWay's former DC9 aircraft, N900SA, was captured in April 2006 with 5.5 tons of coc aine on board. Investigation of the coc aine bust by Mad Cow Morning News[5] led to the discovery that Titan had employed Makram Chams, a Lebanese national. Chams owned a Kwik-Check convenience store in Venice, Florida, where the biggest overseas money transfer to the 9/11 terrorists ($70,000 from the UAE) was sent, according to the testimony of FBI agents during the 9/11 Commission hearings.

Link

Must be nice to have money and jump from company to company..they just create a new identity and all is forgotten...then the government does business with these types of folks...


But it makes sense having a multi-role UAV if in fact it does all that is it suppose to do..

a reply to: Zaphod58

I can make them cheaper. Just put a warhead in the nose and crash it on the target. No return to base, no maintenance,

One shot throw away.

Lots less than three million.

Scale down and 3d print an F111 or Sr71 airframe