Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has received a contract to provide more BQM-167A Subscale Aerial Targets for the US Air Force.
The $79.8-million deal stipulates 60 of the target drones, associated mission kits, flight consumables, and technical data.
The service will also receive a Gas, Aero, Payload, and Power (GAPP) suite for the BQM-167A Product Baseline, which is a necessary update for the platforms to sustain replications of evolving threats.
Kratos will complete the systems under a five-year base period.
“As our nation’s peer threat countries continuously grow their capabilities in both technology and mass, our country must train our military and test our defenses against current, relevant, accurate, and representative threat systems,” Kratos Unmanned Systems Division President Steve Fendley stated.
“Kratos is proud its BQM-167A has been a part of this solution for over 20 years and of the GAPP upgrades which increase the capability and extend the relevance of this affordable threat representative aircraft for years to come.”
“We appreciate the collaborative, cooperative, positive team relationship we share with the USAF which enables Kratos and the USAF’s personnel to work in concert to realize these critical capability systems for our nation’s defense.”
In March 2023, Kratos accepted a similar contract to deliver 17 BQM-167As for the US Air Force.
Kratos BQM-167A
The BQM-167A is a 20-foot (6-meter) aircraft that has a wingspan of 11 feet (3 meters) and a weight of 690 pounds (312 kilograms).
It is powered by a MicroTurbo engine for a top speed of 600 knots (1,111 kilometers/690 miles per hour) and an operational altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters).