Kratos wins $100m space and cyber contracts

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has received multiple contracts worth more than $100 million to develop prototype space intelligence and cyber mission applications using its global radio frequency sensing network, deployable collection systems, signal processing and analytics.

The awards cover several programmes rather than one $100 million contract, and Kratos has not disclosed individual customers, values, delivery dates or programme names. The company says the work will support RF intelligence, electronic warfare, offensive cyber operations and the joint targeting cycle, placing new mission applications on top of a sensing infrastructure that is already deployed internationally.

KnownSpace is built around more than 190 commercial RF sensors distributed across more than 20 monitoring locations. Kratos has previously described the network as covering L, S, C, X and Ku bands, allowing it to observe radio frequency activity associated with satellites and terrestrial systems across several parts of the spectrum rather than relying on one class of signal.

A distributed RF network provides information that optical telescopes and conventional tracking radar cannot produce in the same way. A spacecraft transmitting communications, telemetry or another RF signal can reveal operating characteristics through its frequency, timing, direction and pattern of activity even when the message itself is encrypted or otherwise unavailable. Repeated observations can then be compared with previous behaviour to identify changes in operation.

Kratos combines that fixed infrastructure with KnownSpace Recon+ terminals, which move part of the sensing architecture into a field deployable package. A portable terminal can be positioned where a particular signal geometry or operational requirement justifies local collection instead of relying entirely on the permanent global network, while its data can still be combined with observations gathered elsewhere.

The useful output is generated after those measurements are correlated and processed. KnownSpace services include RF survey and characterisation, signal geolocation, tracking and manoeuvre detection, interference analysis and predictive analytics. The architecture therefore aims to move from identifying that a signal exists towards describing where it originates, how it behaves and whether its behaviour is changing.

That processing chain becomes more demanding when measurements arrive from sensors with different positions, visibility and collection quality. Signals observed at several sites must be correlated to the same source, while time and frequency measurements have to remain sufficiently accurate for geolocation and behavioural analysis. Adding portable sensors expands the geometry available to the network but also increases the amount of information that has to be reconciled into one operating picture.

The new awards take that intelligence into electronic warfare, cyber and targeting applications. Kratos says the prototype systems will support mission functions including access and battle damage assessment in offensive cyber operations, although the company has not disclosed the systems involved or the exact relationship between RF collection and cyber activity.

The link between space sensing and targeting is more straightforward at an architectural level. RF observations can contribute to identifying and locating systems of interest, while repeated collection can establish patterns or indicate that an asset has changed state. Other sensors and intelligence sources can then be combined with that information before any operational decision is made. The Kratos announcement does not describe the complete targeting architecture or claim that KnownSpace acts independently as a targeting system.

Because the physical collection network already exists, much of the new engineering sits in software, mission applications and data integration rather than construction of a completely new sensor estate. Kratos can add processing functions, deployable terminals and customer specific applications around a commercial infrastructure that continues operating outside any one programme.

That model reduces the need for each customer to build an independent global RF monitoring network, but military use still imposes additional requirements around security, tasking, communications and data handling. Information collected through commercially operated infrastructure has to enter protected mission environments without compromising the classification, integrity or availability requirements of the customer using it.

Kratos has been expanding adjacent space domain awareness and ground systems work at the same time. The company received an approximately $100 million production award in July for a modular ground based SDA system after an earlier demonstration phase, while another Space Systems Command programme covers ground management and integration for resilient missile warning and tracking satellites.

The latest contracts occupy a different layer within that portfolio. Instead of concentrating on spacecraft control or a dedicated ground sensor, they use an existing distributed RF network as the collection foundation for intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber applications. Continued value will depend on whether the prototype software can convert large volumes of RF activity into information that arrives quickly enough and with sufficient confidence for operational use.

Kratos has not identified when the prototypes will enter assessment or whether the awards contain production options. Testing will therefore have to establish which applications progress into sustained operational capability. The confirmed industrial development is that the company’s commercial RF sensing estate is now supporting more than $100 million of new defence mission work without requiring an equivalent new physical sensor network to be built first.