Credit: Kratos
LA PLATA, Maryland — Kratos Defense and Security Solutions Inc. said its space division continued its rebound in the three months ending June 30 as continued government business more than offset the softness of its commercial business.
Kratos’s space business is located inside the Kratos Government Solutions division, which reported a 27.1% increase in revenue in Q2 over the same period a year ago. But the division’s operating income, at $12.6 million, was down 19% from a year earlier, “particularly impacted by a less favorable mix in our space, training and cyber business,” Kratos Chief Financial Officer Deanna H. Lund said in an Aug. 7 investor call.
Kratos’s space division includes its software-defined OpenSpace virtualized ground systems for spacecraft, including software for command and control as well as for tracking, telemetry and control of satellites.
OpenSpace’s relevance to military and national security customers is compensating for the fact that the new generation of software-defined satellites for geostationary orbit has yet to launch because of production delays at Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space.
Several established satellite fleet operators, including Viasat Inc., and SES now that it owns Intelsat, have software-defined satellites on order. Viasat has said its three Airbus-built GX 7, 8 and 9 satellites are now scheduled to enter service in 2027.
Credit: hiSky
On Aug. 5, the company announced an agreement with Israel- and UK-based industrial IoT provider hiSky to deliver hiSky satellite network services using Kratos’ OpenSpace software-defined ground system.
“Doing so will enable hiSky and Kratos customers to offer a new breed of on-demand and dynamically scalable IoT services at a much lower cost than conventional hardware-based systems,” Greg Quiggle, Kratos vice president of project management, said in a statement.
Shahar Kravitz, hiSky chief executive, said adopting OpenSpace will allow satellite operators “to spin up new carriers upon demand at any enabled teleport with a touch of a button, without the need for new hardware at the teleport and the associated plumbing. It’s a new era of flexibility, scalability, speed of service enablement and redundancy.”
“Kratos’s space, training and cyber business is turning around led by our government national security offierings, with expected 2026 growth and increased profit margins accelerating into 2027 based on programs and the new opportunity pipeline,” Chief Executive Eric M. DeMarco said during the investor call.
Given the planned increases in defense spending planned among NATO nations, Kratos has positioned OpenSpace for government uses. The Trump administration’s decision to move forward with Golden Dome, a missile-defense system to cover much of North America, plays to many of Kratos’s strengths, including space, he said.
“Remember, I’m the CEO, I drink the Kool-Aid,” DeMarco said. “There is no company in the country, on a relative basis, better positioned in Golden Dome than Kratos.
“On the space segment, we will be involved with the ground command and control and tracking telemetry and control. We are already under contracts for projects related to Golden Dome and that is going to increase.”