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Erinyes
A second Kratos Defense-built hypersonic vehicle could fly in less than a year, expanding the San Diego-based company’s portfolio after the first launch on June 12 of the Erinyes glider, CEO Eric Demarco said on Aug. 7.
“We’re going to be talking–hopefully, maybe a little earlier than this time next year–about a second hypersonic vehicle of ours that’s going to fly that will be an additional market for us,” Demarco tells market analysts on a second-quarter earnings call.
A Kratos spokesperson declined to provide more details about the second hypersonic vehicle.
In the past, Kratos publicized plans to develop a second hypersonic vehicle named Dark Fury, but offered few details. Fury shares a common name with Erinyes, an ancient Greek term for “Furies,” or goddesses of vengeance.
The Erinyes successfully flew on June 12 from NASA’s Wallops, Virginia spaceport as the Hypersonic Test Bed-1, a Missile Defense Agency-funded program.
A stack of Oriole and Terrier sounding rockets powered the first Erinyes test.
Kratos is also developing the Zeus-1 and Zeus-2 solid rocket motors to power future hypersonic vehicle tests.
Since June 12, the Erinyes program collected more orders for further flights as a technology testbed, Demarco said. But the testbed configuration is the “first public version” of Erinyes, he add, hinting that other roles for the hypersonic vehicle are possible.
“This will be one of our primary growth drivers,” Demarco said.
Kratos launched the hypersonic program two years ago by leveraging derivatives of the company’s acquired intellectual property from the Oriole and Terrier sounding rockets.
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