Agreement covers development and production of
small affordable engines for possible use in unmanned aerial
systems, collaborative combat aircraft, and similar
applications
FARNBOROUGH, England, July 22,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE) and
Kratos Turbine Technologies, a division of Kratos Defense &
Security Solutions, Inc., signed a Memorandum of Understanding to
partner on the development and production of small affordable
engines that could potentially power unmanned aerial systems (UAS),
collaborative combat aircraft, and similar applications. The
partnership builds on an existing joint development agreement and
includes full-scale engine production.
For the last year, GE Aerospace and Kratos have been working
together on a small affordable engine. The engine initially was
developed and ground tested by Kratos. Under the existing joint
agreement, GE Aerospace and Kratos completed additional development
efforts and are now conducting tests on the engine. The team plans
to continue development on the current engine, which will undergo
altitude testing next year at GE Aerospace's test cell in
Evendale, Ohio.
Amy Gowder, President and CEO,
Defense & Systems at GE Aerospace said, "Our defense customers
have a growing interest in small affordable engines to meet their
evolving mission requirements. Our initial collaboration has been
very successful, and this agreement furthers our efforts in this
new dynamic military segment."
Eric DeMarco, President & CEO
of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc., said, "Kratos has
made significant investments in the development of our family of
small, low-cost jet engines for jet powered drones, missiles, and
powered munitions that lead in technology and capability. We
consider our relationship with GE Aerospace as invaluable based on
our expectation and forecast for the potential future production of
thousands of turbofan engines for multiple customers."
Each company brings unique expertise to the
partnership. Kratos has more than 20 years of experience in
the development and production of small affordable jet engines for
UAS, drones, and missiles. GE Aerospace has more than 100 years of
experience in the development and scaling up of high-volume
production for jet engine programs for a seamless transition from
development to production.
About GE Aerospace
GE Aerospace (NYSE: GE) is a global aerospace propulsion, services,
and systems leader with an installed base of approximately 44,000
commercial and 26,000 military aircraft engines. With a global team
of 52,000 employees building on more than a century of innovation
and learning, GE Aerospace is committed to inventing the future of
flight, lifting people up, and bringing them home safely. Learn
more about how GE Aerospace and its partners are defining flight
for today, tomorrow and the future at www.geaerospace.com.
About Kratos Defense & Security
Solutions
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions,
Inc. (NASDAQ: KTOS) is a technology, products, system and
software company addressing the defense, national security, and
commercial markets. Kratos makes true internally funded research,
development, capital, and other investments, to rapidly develop,
produce and field solutions that address our customers' mission
critical needs and requirements. At Kratos, affordability is a
technology, and we seek to utilize proven, leading-edge approaches
and technology, not unproven bleeding edge approaches or
technology, with Kratos' approach designed to reduce cost,
schedule, and risk, enabling us to be first to market with cost
effective solutions. We believe that Kratos is known as an
innovative disruptive change agent in the industry, a company that
is an expert in designing products and systems up front for
successful rapid, large quantity, low-cost future manufacturing
which is a value-add competitive differentiator for our large
traditional prime system integrator partners and also to our
government and commercial customers. Kratos intends to pursue
program and contract opportunities as the prime or lead contractor
when we believe that our probability of win (PWin) is high and any
investment required by Kratos is within our capital resource
comfort level. We intend to partner and team with a large,
traditional system integrator when our assessment of PWin is
greater or required investment is beyond Kratos' comfort level.
Kratos' primary business areas include virtualized ground systems
for satellites and space vehicles including software for command
& control (C2) and telemetry, tracking and control (TT&C),
jet powered unmanned aerial drone systems, hypersonic vehicles and
rocket systems, propulsion systems for drones, missiles, loitering
munitions, supersonic systems, space craft and launch systems,
C5ISR and microwave electronic products for missile, radar, missile
defense, space, satellite, counter UAS, directed energy,
communication and other systems, and virtual & augmented
reality training systems for the warfighter. For more information,
visit www.KratosDefense.com.
Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Certain
statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking
statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are made on
the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of
the management of GE Aerospace and Kratos, respectively, and are
subject to significant risks and uncertainty. Investors are
cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking
statements. All such forward-looking statements speak only as of
the date they are made, and GE Aerospace and Kratos undertake no
obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a
result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although GE
Aerospace and Kratos believe that the expectations reflected in
these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements
involve many risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results
to differ materially from what may be expressed or implied in these
forward-looking statements. For a further discussion of risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those
expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks
relating to the business of the parties in general, see the risk
disclosures in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Kratos for the
year ended December 31, 2023, the
"Risk Factors" section of the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q of GE
Aerospace for the quarter ended March 31,
2024, and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and
other filings made with the SEC by GE Aerospace and Kratos,
respectively.
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SOURCE GE Aerospace