F-35 interoperability with ground systems demonstrated by Lockheed Martin and U.K. Defence Ministry
NewsApril 30, 2026
BLANDFORD, United Kingdom. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and the U.K. Ministry of Defence completed a demonstration showing F-35 data sharing with the U.K. NEXUS command-and-control environment and British Army ground effectors, the company announced in a statement.
According to the statement, the exercise, called Babel Fish, built on Project DEIMOS by adding a ground link to an earlier F-35-to-NEXUS data-sharing effort. In the demonstration, a synthetic environment was used to simulate data from an F-35 being routed through the U.K. command-and-control network to the British Army ground layer, the statement reads.
Lockheed Martin says the event was intended to show that targeting data from the F-35 could be used by ground-based systems to support faster kill-chain decisions. The company also states that the effort was meant to support multi-domain operations involving allied and non-U.S. systems.
The demonstration also highlighted Lockheed Martin’s open systems technology architecture, which the company says is designed to connect the F-35 with partner command-and-control networks and land-based assets
