AUSA 2025: Kratos Positions XQ-58 Valkyrie Drone for Massed Precision and Autonomous Teaming
{loadposition bannertop}
{loadposition sidebarpub}
Kratos used AUSA 2025 in Washington to foreground the XQ-58 Valkyrie as a multipurpose, attritable loyal wingman able to expand sensors, magazines, and reach for joint land and air operations.
During AUSA 2025 in Washington, Kratos placed the XQ-58 Valkyrie at the center of its message to the land forces community, underscoring how an attritable “loyal wingman” can expand magazines, sensors, and reach for joint operations. The timing amplified the impact: days earlier, Kratos unveiled the Ragnarök low-cost cruise missile and said the design is ready for production, positioning Valkyrie as both a teaming asset and a launcher for a new class of affordable precision effects. The AUSA setting, held from 13 to 15 October at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, further highlighted the Army’s appetite for autonomous teaming and dispersed airpower concepts.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
Kratos’ decision to foreground Valkyrie in Washington, backed by concrete weapon integration news and a production-ready pitch on Ragnarök, sends a clear message about where affordable combat mass is headed (Picture source: Army Recognition Group)
Kratos’ XQ-58 is a clean-sheet, low-cost tactical UAS built for collaborative combat roles, pairing a compact, low-observable airframe with modular payload options. Kratos’ published specifications list a 30-foot length, 27-foot wingspan and about 2,500 pounds dry weight, powered by a roughly 2,000-pound-thrust turbofan. The design supports a maximum launch weight near 6,000 pounds with about 600 pounds of internal payload capacity plus roughly 600 pounds on mid-wing stations. It cruises around Mach 0.72, operates from roughly 50 feet AGL to 45,000 feet MSL, and, crucial for austere operations, was engineered for runway-independent rail or trolley launch with parachute recovery, while later variants add a landing-gear option for conventional takeoff and landing cycles.
From first flight in 2019 under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s attritable program to today’s joint momentum, the development path has been unusually fast for a combat-credible UAS. Over the summer, reporting indicated the U.S. Marine Corps is moving Valkyrie into a formal program line, with new variants to be manufactured for the service; in parallel, Kratos and Airbus announced a teaming to tailor a mission-systemed Valkyrie for Germany, signaling a European route to fielding collaborative combat aircraft on relevant timelines. Kratos has also showcased a built-in-gear configuration to complement the original runway-independent concept, broadening basing and sustainment options for operators.
What makes the Valkyrie proposition distinctive is the intersection of basing flexibility, modular carriage, and pairing with very low-cost effects. Unlike many CTOL-only wingman concepts, XQ-58 can disperse from rails, roads, or short pads and recover without a runway, a property that aligns with expeditionary and deception tactics; at the same time, landing-gear variants enable routine airfield ops and tighter integration with crewed squadrons. The internal bay and wing stations allow mission-tailoring from ISR and EW to strike on a common airframe, with capacity that meaningfully exceeds many small attritable drones. Most recently, Kratos introduced the Ragnarök low-cost cruise missile, advertised at a roughly 500 nautical mile range, a cruise speed greater than Mach 0.7, an approximately 80-pound payload, and an estimated production cost of about $150,000 per round in lots of 100. Kratos showed Ragnarök carried both internally and externally on Valkyrie and emphasized modular carriage options including internal, external, and pallet carriage, plus a compact, wing-folding design and compatibility with standard 14-inch rack systems, features intended to compress cost-per-effect while extending reach.
Strategically, an attritable, runway-agnostic wingman that can loft families of low-cost precision weapons changes the calculus in contested theaters. For land forces and joint commanders, Valkyrie offers a way to multiply sensors and magazines forward without committing scarce crewed platforms; it can help close kill chains from dispersed sites, saturate defenses with larger salvos, and preserve high-end aircraft for the most complex missions. For allies, the Airbus–Kratos path opens a European industrial lane to collaborative combat airpower outside the traditional fighter cycles, potentially accelerating adoption and interoperability. For adversaries, the combination of survivable UCAVs with budget-priced cruise weapons complicates layer-by-layer air defense and raises the threshold at which saturation becomes feasible. The AUSA spotlight therefore reads less as a static display and more as a statement of intent: XQ-58 is evolving into a platform-and-munitions ecosystem designed to scale quickly and operate from almost anywhere. Kratos Defense
Kratos’ decision to foreground Valkyrie in Washington, backed by concrete weapon integration news and a production-ready pitch on Ragnarök, sends a clear message about where affordable combat mass is headed. A loyal wingman with runway independence, credible payload capacity, and access to long-reach, low-cost munitions is moving from slideware to fieldable reality, and the operational payoff, more sorties from more places at a lower price per effect, will resonate across Army, joint, and allied planning alike.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
{loadposition bannertop}
{loadposition sidebarpub}
Kratos used AUSA 2025 in Washington to foreground the XQ-58 Valkyrie as a multipurpose, attritable loyal wingman able to expand sensors, magazines, and reach for joint land and air operations.
During AUSA 2025 in Washington, Kratos placed the XQ-58 Valkyrie at the center of its message to the land forces community, underscoring how an attritable “loyal wingman” can expand magazines, sensors, and reach for joint operations. The timing amplified the impact: days earlier, Kratos unveiled the Ragnarök low-cost cruise missile and said the design is ready for production, positioning Valkyrie as both a teaming asset and a launcher for a new class of affordable precision effects. The AUSA setting, held from 13 to 15 October at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, further highlighted the Army’s appetite for autonomous teaming and dispersed airpower concepts.
Kratos’ decision to foreground Valkyrie in Washington, backed by concrete weapon integration news and a production-ready pitch on Ragnarök, sends a clear message about where affordable combat mass is headed (Picture source: Army Recognition Group)
Kratos’ XQ-58 is a clean-sheet, low-cost tactical UAS built for collaborative combat roles, pairing a compact, low-observable airframe with modular payload options. Kratos’ published specifications list a 30-foot length, 27-foot wingspan and about 2,500 pounds dry weight, powered by a roughly 2,000-pound-thrust turbofan. The design supports a maximum launch weight near 6,000 pounds with about 600 pounds of internal payload capacity plus roughly 600 pounds on mid-wing stations. It cruises around Mach 0.72, operates from roughly 50 feet AGL to 45,000 feet MSL, and, crucial for austere operations, was engineered for runway-independent rail or trolley launch with parachute recovery, while later variants add a landing-gear option for conventional takeoff and landing cycles.
From first flight in 2019 under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s attritable program to today’s joint momentum, the development path has been unusually fast for a combat-credible UAS. Over the summer, reporting indicated the U.S. Marine Corps is moving Valkyrie into a formal program line, with new variants to be manufactured for the service; in parallel, Kratos and Airbus announced a teaming to tailor a mission-systemed Valkyrie for Germany, signaling a European route to fielding collaborative combat aircraft on relevant timelines. Kratos has also showcased a built-in-gear configuration to complement the original runway-independent concept, broadening basing and sustainment options for operators.
What makes the Valkyrie proposition distinctive is the intersection of basing flexibility, modular carriage, and pairing with very low-cost effects. Unlike many CTOL-only wingman concepts, XQ-58 can disperse from rails, roads, or short pads and recover without a runway, a property that aligns with expeditionary and deception tactics; at the same time, landing-gear variants enable routine airfield ops and tighter integration with crewed squadrons. The internal bay and wing stations allow mission-tailoring from ISR and EW to strike on a common airframe, with capacity that meaningfully exceeds many small attritable drones. Most recently, Kratos introduced the Ragnarök low-cost cruise missile, advertised at a roughly 500 nautical mile range, a cruise speed greater than Mach 0.7, an approximately 80-pound payload, and an estimated production cost of about $150,000 per round in lots of 100. Kratos showed Ragnarök carried both internally and externally on Valkyrie and emphasized modular carriage options including internal, external, and pallet carriage, plus a compact, wing-folding design and compatibility with standard 14-inch rack systems, features intended to compress cost-per-effect while extending reach.
Strategically, an attritable, runway-agnostic wingman that can loft families of low-cost precision weapons changes the calculus in contested theaters. For land forces and joint commanders, Valkyrie offers a way to multiply sensors and magazines forward without committing scarce crewed platforms; it can help close kill chains from dispersed sites, saturate defenses with larger salvos, and preserve high-end aircraft for the most complex missions. For allies, the Airbus–Kratos path opens a European industrial lane to collaborative combat airpower outside the traditional fighter cycles, potentially accelerating adoption and interoperability. For adversaries, the combination of survivable UCAVs with budget-priced cruise weapons complicates layer-by-layer air defense and raises the threshold at which saturation becomes feasible. The AUSA spotlight therefore reads less as a static display and more as a statement of intent: XQ-58 is evolving into a platform-and-munitions ecosystem designed to scale quickly and operate from almost anywhere.
Kratos Defense
Kratos’ decision to foreground Valkyrie in Washington, backed by concrete weapon integration news and a production-ready pitch on Ragnarök, sends a clear message about where affordable combat mass is headed. A loyal wingman with runway independence, credible payload capacity, and access to long-reach, low-cost munitions is moving from slideware to fieldable reality, and the operational payoff, more sorties from more places at a lower price per effect, will resonate across Army, joint, and allied planning alike.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
