Kratos Expands Oklahoma City Manufacturing Facility to Accelerate Production of Valkyrie, Firejet and Other Jet Drone Systems
106,000 Square Foot Facility Expansion Reflects Increased Demand for Kratos Jet Drones and Kratos’ Continued Investment in Strengthening the United States Defense Industrial Base Through Scalable, Efficient Manufacturing Capacity Capable of Producing Affordable, Mission-Ready Systems at Quantity and at Speed
SAN DIEGO, July 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS), a technology company in the defense, national security and global markets, today announced a major expansion of its Oklahoma City manufacturing campus with the addition of over 100,000 square feet of manufacturing and production space. The expansion supports increasing customer demand for the company’s family of high-performance, affordable jet-powered drone systems, including the Valkyrie collaborative combat aircraft, the Firejet/Mighty Hornet IV and others.
The facility expansion represents Kratos’ continued investment in strengthening the United States defense industrial base through scalable, efficient manufacturing capacity capable of producing affordable, mission-ready systems at quantity and at speed. Today, Kratos produces approximately 165 high-performance jet drones annually, and this expansion will enable the company to further increase production to meet growing demand from the U.S. Department of War and allied customers.
“The future fight demands the ability to rapidly produce affordable, high-performance systems at scale,” said Steve Fendley, President of Kratos Unmanned Systems Division. “This expansion in Oklahoma City reflects our long-term commitment to investing ahead of customer demand and building the industrial capacity needed to support the Department of War’s modernization priorities. As autonomous systems become increasingly central to the future force, manufacturing readiness and producing at scale will be just as important as technology readiness, maybe more.”
The expanded facility will provide additional manufacturing, assembly, integration and test capacity for multiple Kratos tactical jet aircraft programs.
Production will support Valkyrie, the affordable, runway-flexible collaborative combat aircraft selected by the U.S. Marine Corps as the foundation of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program of record. Designed to operate solo, in swarms, or alongside crewed aircraft while providing additional mass, reach and mission capability, Valkyrie represents a new generation of affordable autonomous airpower. The expanded facility will also manufacture the Mighty Hornet IV, which is expected to serve as a key tactical capability supporting Taiwan’s defense requirements, reflecting growing international demand for affordable, high-performance unmanned systems.
The expanded facility will also support increased production capacity for Kratos’ family of high-performance aerial target systems, including the Firejet. Kratos’ Firejet system supports realistic operational test, evaluation and weapons training across the U.S. military and allied nations, with demand for advanced target capabilities continuing to grow, including for the test and training of missile, radar, air defense, C-UAS and directed energy weapon systems, and their crews.
Kratos has consistently invested in manufacturing infrastructure, production technologies, and workforce development to ensure the company can deliver affordable systems at the pace and scale required by evolving national security needs. The Oklahoma City expansion is the latest in a series of investments focused on expanding domestic production capacity and strengthening the resilience of the U.S. defense industrial base.
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 and follow Kratos on LinkedIn and X.
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 Kratos 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 Kratos undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although Kratos believes 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 Kratos in general, see the risk disclosures in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Kratos for the year ended December 28, 2025, and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings made with the SEC by Kratos.