MARIGNANE, France. The VSR700 unmanned aerial system (UAS), developed by Airbus Helicopters in cooperation with the French Armament General Directorate (DGA), completed its first operational configuration sea trial earlier this month, Airbus announced in a statement. This trial involved 80 fully autonomous take-offs and landings from a civilian vessel equipped with a helicopter deck off the coast of Brittany.

PARIS, France. Airbus will provide tactical satellite communications services to the Belgian Ministry of Defence as part of a 15-year contract, the company announced in a statement.

PARIS, France. Airbus has won a contract to provide satellite communications to the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, the company announced in a statement.

REDSTONE ARSENAL -- HUNTSVILLE, Ala. The U.S. Army Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing/Space (APNT/Space) Cross-Functional Team (CFT) reported that its stratospheric flight demonstration using the solar-powered Airbus Zephyr 8 ultra-long-endurance solar-powered unmanned aircraft system (UAS) ended after 64 days, with the Zephyr remaining aloft for more than double its intended 30-day continuous flight.

EUROPE. Airbus and OneWeb have signed a distribution partner agreement to provide low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication (SATCOM) services for military and governmental use.

NETHERLANDS. Airbus will place a dedicated Ultra High Frequency (UHF) military communications hosted payload on board the EUTELSAT 36D telecommunications satellite. As a provider of military satellite communications (milsatcom) services in Europe, Airbus will aim to offer a new UHF communications service to the armed forces, particularly those of European countries and NATO allies.

FRANCE. The French defense procurement agency (DGA) has awarded Thales and Airbus a contract for the new joint tactical signals intelligence (SIGINT) system to upgrade the French forces' critical signals monitoring, direction finding, and spectrum analysis capabilities.