NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. An advance in aircraft simulators, allowing F-35 pilots to link with pilots of other aircraft, was announced on Wednesday by Lockheed Martin. For the first time, Lockheed, the F-35 Joint Program Office, and the U.S. Air Force connected F-35, F-22, F-16, and E3 airborne warning planes in a simulated environment, according to Lockheed Martin.

GERMANY. The German Air Force's Tactical Data Link Exercise, Timber Express, took place at Jagel Airbase in Schleswig-Holstein. This annual exercise focuses on testing and evaluating the interoperability of various systems using multiple tactical data links across the land, sea, and air domain. HENSOLDT participated with equipment and personnel from its Avionics division, demonstrating Tactical Data Link (TDL) integration into airborne mission systems.

UNITED KINGDOM. During Armed Forces Week, BAE Systems and the Royal Navy announce a $3.9 million (£3.2 million) autonomous boat contract intended to increase the Navy’s capabilities while protecting sailor’s lives.

HAIFA, Israel. Elbit Systems announced that it was awarded a contract valued at approximately $53 million to provide and integrate intelligence suites onboard vessels of the Navy of a country in Southeast Asia. The contract will be performed over a two-year period.

ARLINGTON, Va. Leonardo DRS has won a contract worth $104 million to deliver the next generation of U.S. Army mission command computing systems -- the modular Mounted Family of Computer Systems II (MFoCS II) -- that support the Army’s current modernization strategy for ground combat vehicles, combat support vehicles, and command posts. 

WHITE SALMON, Wash. Sagetech Avionics, developer and manufacturer of miniature aviation transponders, announced a partnership with Embention, supplier of critical components for unmanned vehicles. Adding Sagetech's transponders to its other aviation solutions is intended to enable Embention to offer its customers full-certified situational awareness during the piloting of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

BOZEMAN, Mont. Ascent Vision Technologies (AVT) has won a contract with Thailand's Defence Technology Institute (DTI) to supply the AVT eXpeditionary Mobile Air Defense Integrated System (X-MADIS), which is a portable system intended to protect critical assets against hostile small unmanned aerial systems (UASs).

FREMONT, Calif. The counterspace security market -- defined by the U.S. Air Force as those missions that integrate defensive and offensive operations to attain and maintain the desired control and protection in and through space -- is anticipated to reach $8.95 billion by 2025, according to a recent report by BIS Research, "Global Counterspace Security Market, 2020-2025."

NETHERLANDS. Airbus has won a contract for the development, supply, and integration of 115 Eurofighter ESCAN Radars for the German and Spanish Eurofighter fleet. According to the company, it marks the largest order for the electronically scanned array radar, Captor-E, thus far. The contract signature followed the approval by both governments in recent weeks.

WALTHAM, Mass. Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies business, received a $2.3 billion U.S. Missile Defense Agency production contract for seven gallium nitride (GaN)-based AN/TPY-2 radars as part of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which is designed to protect against incoming ballistic missile threats.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. A new result published in the journal Nature by a team of academic researchers led by University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) demonstrates stable, turnkey operation of chipscale optical frequency combs, which means that component makers are a giant step closer toward enabling broader manufacture and use of high-performance photonics for defense and other use.

ANDOVER, Mass. Mercury Systems has signed a $3.9 million multiphase contract award with a leading defense prime contractor for the development of a high-density system-in-package (SiP) solution for radar systems using its 2.5D chipscale integration technology. 

SAN DIEGO. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) recently demonstrated several expanded automatic takeoff and landing capability (ATLC) enhancements on the MQ-9A Reaper unmanned aerial system (UAS) as part of the ongoing U.S. Air Force contract for MQ-9A modernization.

RESTON, Va. Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) has won a contract from the U.S. Air Force 557th Weather Wing to manage and modernize the critical hardware and software for its Technology Application Development and Sustainment (TADS) system to support the development of accurate and timely weather reports, which are critical for warfighters in the field.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Synopsys, Inc. announced that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Synopsys as a prime contractor for the Automatic Implementation of Secure Silicon (AISS) program. According to the company, the program's goal is to automate the inclusion of scalable hardware security mechanisms in IP and system-on-chips (SoCs) to explore security versus other design trade-offs.