The goal is to create a variant of the SeaSparrow that can be used by the 12 nations in the NATO SeaSparrow Project Office consortium, or NSPO, according to the Navy Sources Sought notice. The deadline is Oct. 19.

The NSPO is looking for a weapon that can be employed against a wide variety of threats. The NSV SeaSparrow “should have capability against current and future threat classes spanning a variety of threat characteristics including velocity (low-speed to high-speed), altitude (sea skimming to high diver), maneuverability (non-maneuvering to high Gravitational (G)-Force maneuvers), and signatures,” the Navy said.

The NSV is also meant to defend the fleet against massed salvos of missiles and function despite jamming.

The weapon “should be able to work in complex natural, contested, Radio Frequency (RF), Electro-Optical (EO), and/or Infrared (IR) environments.”

“The missile should have the capability to discriminate and resolve between multiple closely spaced targets and provide threat-track measurements to support missile guidance, navigation and lethality functions,” the Sources Sought notice continues. “The missile should have the capability to handle threat countermeasures.”

The notice included a graphic that appeared to depict surface ships — including two aircraft carriers — being targeted by a dozen missiles and torpedoes, plus a hostile fixed-wing aircraft and a helicopter. The friendly ships appeared to be using active illumination to paint some threats, while the SeaSparrow used its on-board sensors to intercept others.

NSPO seeks a modular, open-source design that would give the U.S. government “maximum rights in technical data, computer software, and computer software documentation (including source code), design artifacts, and interface specifications.”

“This approach will simplify future upgrades, promote interoperability across consortium platforms, and outpace evolving threats,” the notice said.

The NSPO wants contractors who can provide a complete missile system, including airframe, propulsion, guidance and software. The missile should have no more than a 10-inch diameter and fit inside a Mark 41 vertical launch tube.

The Sources Sought notice emphasized that the missile and its technical data should be releasable to the entire NATO SEASPARROW Consortium: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the U.S. Other users include Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.

The Block II RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow is currently manufactured by Raytheon, which doubled production to more than 350 missiles in 2025. Amid naval operations in the Persian Gulf, where Iran has launched numerous missiles and drones against dwindling stocks of U.S. and allied interceptors, future demand for short-range air defense weapons is likely to be brisk.

First fielded in 2004, the Evolved SeaSparrow is descended from the 1950s AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided air-to-air missile.

Though the original Sparrow had a mixed combat record as an aerial combat weapon in the Vietnam War, the Evolved SeaSparrow was intended as a low-cost defense against anti-ship missiles, aircraft, helicopters and fast attack boats. The current version has an estimated range of around 30 miles.

Qatar’s government requested to buy up to four KC-46As, eight PW4062 turbofan engines, 10 AN/ALR-69A radar warning receivers, 15 Guardian Laser Transmitter Assemblies for Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasure systems and 8 LAIRCM system processor replacements, according to a Thursday release.

The proposed sale also includes “non-major defense equipment,” such as precision navigation, transportation and airlift support, personnel training and training equipment and other related logistical and program support items, per the statement.

“The proposed sale will increase Qatar’s capability to meet current and future threats by enhancing its defense capabilities and interoperability with U.S. and allied forces and reinforcing Qatar’s strategic role in regional security,” the release reads.

The potential sale is meant to support U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives through assisting in Qatar’s security. The U.S. government statement describes the country as a “strategic regional partner” that continues to be an “important force” for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East.

Principal contractors for the envisioned deal include Boeing, Pratt & Whitney Military Engines, RTX Corporation and Northrop Grumman Corporation.

The proposed sale’s implementation will not require any additional U.S. government or contractor representatives to Qatar, the announcement says.

“At this time, the U.S. Government is not aware of any offset agreement proposed in connection with this potential sale,” the statement says. “Any offset agreement will be defined in negotiations between the purchaser and the contractor.”

The KC-46A provides aerial refueling support to the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and partner nations and has greater refueling, cargo and aeromedical evacuation capabilities than the aging KC-135s.

The announcement comes as questions persist surrounding the security features of a Qatari-donated Air Force One aircraft that has been modified for U.S. presidential use. President Donald Trump began using the new jet in July and has since announced it will be “maxed out” for upgrades.

The agency announced that the company AVIDrone pushed the limits with its electric helicopter design that lifted an unprecedented payload-to-weight ratio of 3.84 to 1.

In practical terms, that means the company’s Katana heavy-lift drone, weighing 29.3 pounds, lifted and carried a payload weight of 112.4 pounds across approximately five nautical miles.

AVIDrone, a Canadian company with U.S. headquarters in Maryland, specializes in cargo delivery drones for the defense and commercial sectors.

In a statement, the company called its first-place performance the “result of bringing together years of know-how, our proprietary autopilot and flight-control technologies, and decades of experience designing and flying aircraft specifically for heavy cargo lift.”

With the DARPA Lift Challenge, the agency aimed to advance vertical lift in a small unmanned aerial system. Calling it the “heavy-lift bottleneck,” multirotor drones typically can only carry payloads equal to or less than their own weight.

Phillip “Donna” Smith, the Lift Challenge program manager, described heavy vertical flight as the “next great technological inflection point that is economical for widespread adoption.”

He explained that its application could revolutionize industries like agriculture, logistics, construction and more.

By placing first, AVIDrone won $1.25 million in prize money. But the company also described the competition as an “outstanding environment for accelerating new ideas and turning them into real-world applications.”

The second-place winner, Massachusetts-based MTech Operations, was awarded $750,000 for lifting 3.64 to 1; and the third-place winner, California-based Xtreme Aerial Concepts, was awarded $500,000 for lifting 3.45 to 1.

And then DARPA issued awards for subjective categories, which were determined by a panel of program managers with deep aviation expertise.

These included the University of Maryland team for the Most Revolutionary Aerodynamic Design, the Texas-based Portal Aircraft Company for the Most Revolutionary Powertrain Design, and the Utah-based DefendTex for the Most Promising Technology.

For the latter, DARPA said it had the highest ratio in the competition, with 9.63 to 1, but it did not complete a scored run.

Smith told Military Times that besides the prize money and the cool demonstrations, the Lift Challenge created a huge networking event that allowed inventors, investors and users to set new goals and create future projects.

“So now, the challenges can get organized and the community that is built can start moving and (try) to solve problems that different organizations have across the United States or even the world,” Smith said. “Like we’ve seen in past challenges, the people here oftentimes combine forces and build the next generation of aircraft or whatever the challenge is.”

The service sent out a request this week for manufacturing 133,014 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, rockets by 2034, according to the Army’s Sources Sought notice. Contractors have until Sept. 1 to submit white papers on plans to meet that quota.

The timeline calls for churning out 19,002 rockets per year from 2028 to 2034, with the first actual deliveries starting in February 2030.

“The scope of the contract includes production, tooling, engineering change proposals, and supporting activities of GMLRS rockets including unitary, alternative warhead (AW), and extended range (ER) rockets,” the notice said.

Current GMLRS manufacturer Lockheed Martin already announced last year that it is ramping up production capacity to 14,000 rockets annually. The Army’s new plan would require a nearly 36% increase in capacity on top of that.

“Submissions must outline the most efficient and cost-effective methods for achieving this production rate,” the Army noted. Army efforts to ramp up U.S. munitions production have stumbled, including a facility to manufacture components for 155mm shells that failed to produce any parts.

GMLRS rockets are launched from the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System armored vehicle. The munitions can also be fired from the smaller truck-mounted M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.

The base version of GMLRS has a range of 70 kilometers, while the extended-range version can reach up to 150 kilometers.

Lockheed Martin had delivered 75,000 GMLRS rockets to the U.S. Army by 2024. But that still hasn’t satisfied demand for the munitions.

Originally designed as Cold War weapons to unleash massive firepower against a hypothetical Soviet attack on Europe, U.S. multiple rocket launchers became some of the stars of the war in Ukraine.

The M270, HIMARS and their GMLRS rockets have proved instrumental in enabling Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. GMLRS rockets devastated targets such as command posts, supply depots and troop formations.

Ukraine even used HIMARS to hit a power plant inside Russia last September. However, heavy Russian jamming of the GPS guidance system in the rockets eventually compromised some effectiveness.

Between deliveries to Ukraine and a protracted conflict with Iran, U.S stockpiles of GMLRS and other guided munitions have been depleted. Replenishment, meanwhile, has been complicated by a shortage of rocket motors.

The goal is to create a family of drones that can “represent the full range of airborne threats, spanning from inexpensive ‘hobby drones’ to the most advanced adversary fighter and large-scale aircraft,” according to the Air Force’s Request for Information, which has a deadline of Sept. 28.

At the same time, the Air Force desires next-generation target drones that are so inexpensive and easy to manufacture that they can be “treated as attritable or expendable when required.”

As with drones and other new technologies, the Pentagon is turning to private industry for fresh ideas, “including commercial, modified commercial, dual-use, and non-developmental solutions,” the RFI said. “The government is particularly interested in non-traditional, commercially derived, or dual-use solutions that offer advantages in cost, scalability, and simplicity over legacy systems.”

The new target drones are expected to simulate a wide array of capabilities.

For fighters, the drones should have “supersonic capabilities (up to and exceeding Mach 1.6 at 40,000 feet), high-agility/high-G combat maneuvers, precise low-observable Radar Cross-section (RCS) profiles, multi-spectral Infrared (IR) signatures, active RF emissions, and integrated Electronic Attack (EA) capabilities,” according to the RFI.

To simulate C-130-sized multiengine aircraft, the focus is less on high performance and more on “matching the physical scale, slow subsonic flight envelopes, and propeller or turbofan propulsion characteristics of larger multi-engine aircraft. These platforms must prioritize representative physical volume, basic RF/IR emissions, and realistic radar returns to verify missile seeker guidance, and warhead lethality against large-frame targets.”

For even bigger aircraft, such as strategic bombers and AWACS planes, the key is “replicating the massive physical dimensions, multi-spectral thermal signatures, and heavy-aircraft radar strategic threats.”

To mimic big Group 5 unmanned aerial vehicles, the target drone should be capable of flying at 50,000 feet. For Group 3 and 4 UAVs, the targets should be capable of flying at Mach 0.5 to 0.8, and maneuver at 3 to 6 Gs. For small Group 1 and 2 drones, the targets should fly at speeds of less than 150 knots and be capable of drone-swarm operations.

Remote-controlled target drones have been used for nearly a century, including Britain’s Queen Bee — a converted Tiger Moth trainer — in the 1930s.

More recently, the U.S. Air Force has relied since 2007 on the subsonic — and subscale – BQM-167A. At 20 feet long and with a wingspan of 11 feet, it hardly resembles a 67-foot-long Chinese J-20 stealth fighter or a 108-foot-wide Chinese H6 bomber.

The Air Force also has the QF-16, a converted F-16 that can play the role of a full-sized target, such as a fourth-generation fighter. While a practical way to make use of retired jets, they aren’t meant to simulate fifth-generation stealth fighters or large aircraft, nor are they cheap enough to be expended in quantity.

Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Forces are currently testing Helsing’s HX-2 strike drone, as Tokyo looks to modernize its military and counter an increasingly assertive China. The field tests will run until the end of September, the spokesperson said.

Helsing struck an “initial agreement” for the Japanese government to use its systems earlier this year, a spokesperson for the Munich-based company said, adding that the move was made possible by an unnamed “local brokerage partner.”

Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rakuten’s involvement with Helsing was first reported by Japan’s Nikkei newspaper. While the Tokyo-based conglomerate has limited defense experience, it is aiming to help more startups break into Japan’s defense industry.

“Encouraging greater participation for startups in Japan’s defense industry presents an important opportunity to strengthen the country’s defense capabilities,” Hideaki Mukai, chief of staff to Rakuten’s CEO, said in a statement to Reuters. “Startups often face significant structural barriers, including complex procurement systems, difficulties communicating with government agencies and challenging procurement cycles.

“Rakuten hopes to help bridge these gaps by leveraging our experience and capabilities to connect startups and cutting-edge technologies with the needs of government agencies, further driving innovation and development in Japan’s defense industry.”

GLOBAL DEFENSE FIRMS EYE JAPAN

A military spending splurge by Japan, along with its easing of arms-export rules earlier this year, has sparked strong interest from overseas defense firms looking for local partners to break into a potentially lucrative new market.

Rakuten helped U.S.-listed Ukrainian drone software maker Swarmer organize a demonstration of its technology for a unit of Japan’s military earlier this year, Reuters previously reported.

The late-April test involved using its AI software to coordinate a swarm of drones ​in a seek-and-hit mission in Japan.

Rakuten’s billionaire founder Hiroshi “Mickey” Mikitani has been among Japan’s most vocal supporters of Ukraine, and his firm has also helped other Ukrainian defense firms exhibit their products at arms fairs in Japan.

Founded in 2021, Helsing initially focused on artificial intelligence software ​designed to help analyze battlefield data ​before ⁠expanding into autonomous strike drones, underwater surveillance systems and military aircraft applications.

It has secured contracts ⁠with ​European governments and defense ​companies, while supplying drones for Ukraine backed by German government ​funding. The Munich-based firm raised $1.8 billion in a funding round in July, cementing its position as the continent’s best-funded defense technology startup.

The U.S. payload rode a Japanese H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center. It is the second and final sensor in the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System-Hosted Payload program, the first national security space partnership of its kind between the United States and Japan, according to a recent release.

The new payload will deliver near-real-time data to the Space Surveillance Network, improving the U.S. Space Force’s understanding of activities within geosynchronous orbit above the Indo-Pacific. Geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles up, is where a satellite matches Earth’s rotation and remains over the same spot.

Combat Forces Command’s Mission Delta 2 will operate the sensor to identify and track objects in orbit and help operators understand potential threats or opportunities.

The Japanese QZS-7, built by Mitsubishi Electric in Kamakura, Japan, is part of a constellation that primarily augments GPS signals over Japan and the surrounding region.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory designed and built both U.S. payloads for the program. Space Force and laboratory teams worked with Japanese partners for two years to integrate and test the second sensor with its host satellite.

“The successful launch of QZS-7 is a powerful testament to the enduring strength and rapid modernization of the U.S.-Japan alliance,” Col. Bryon McClain, Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for Space Combat Power, said in the release.

“By continuing to merge our capabilities in space modernization and satellite communications, we are maintaining security in a contested space domain and fortifying our shared deterrence capabilities across the Indo-Pacific region,” he continued.

Col. Gina Peterson, deputy commander of Mission Delta 2, said the program helps the Space Force meet threats from peer adversaries and build “resilient capabilities to detect, understand, and maintain custody of objects in deep space.”

The first sensor launched in February 2025 on QZS-6. Mission Delta 2 runs both payloads through the Multi-Mission Space Operations Center/Enterprise Command and Control-Schriever enclave in Colorado.

The U.S.-Japan partnership on this program began with a December 2020 agreement between the Space Force and Japan’s National Space Policy Secretariat.

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro, commander of U.S. Space Forces Pacific, called the alliance one of the nation’s greatest strategic advantages in the Pacific and said the program demonstrates how the two countries enhance security across the region through collaboration from design through launch.

The deals cover avionics and ejector assemblies Boeing supplies to prime contractor Raytheon, an RTX business, for both the SM-3 Block IB and the newer Block IIA. Both variants operate with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System to destroy incoming missiles outside the atmosphere.

“These agreements ensure our Warfighters get the munitions they need to win,” Michael P. Duffey, under secretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said in the Pentagon release. “We are stabilizing our supply chains, expanding munitions production and putting our entire defense industrial base on a wartime footing.”

The frameworks run for seven years and allow Boeing to start building components before a contract is in place, while the three sides negotiate a multiyear deal. The long-term commitment is intended to give suppliers enough certainty to invest in added capacity. Neither the Pentagon nor Boeing released dollar figures or quantities.

“This gives us a clear demand signal to build and deliver SM-3 interceptors at the levels needed to counter threats,” Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems, said in a company statement. “The SM-3 is an essential part of the layered air and missile defense architecture that protects the U.S. and its allies worldwide.”

The approach mirrors a seven-year deal Boeing struck in April to triple production of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement seekers, part of a broader Pentagon effort to lock in supply from key subcontractors alongside the prime contractors.

Earlier this month, the Missile Defense Agency awarded Raytheon a $745 million contract to produce fully assembled SM-3 Block IIA interceptors for the United States and Japan.

Demand for the interceptor traces back to April 2024, when Navy destroyers first fired SM-3s in combat, helping to thwart an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel. Far more interceptors have been launched since, including those fired in Operation Epic Fury.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the SM-3 inventory at 414 as of December 2025. A May analysis from the center put wartime expenditures between 130 and 250 missiles and warned that replenishment will take years.

Congress has stepped in to keep the Block IB line open, the cheaper of the two variants covered by Friday’s agreements, after the Missile Defense Agency proposed ending new purchases in the fiscal 2025 budget request.

American officials are backpedaling too. Trump on July 20 told the Financial Times that the U.S. has to be “a little bit careful of who we license to.” Despite that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday posted on X that the two sides have “now reached an agreement.”

The glacial progress may reflect American defense giants’ fear that Kyiv could become a defense industry competitor — rather than posing risk to technology or intellectual property — a Republican official on Capitol Hill told The Atlantic.

“Their real worry is that the Ukrainians will find a way to improve the Patriot and then produce them at scale faster and for much less money than what the existing production lines in the U.S. could do,” the official said, adding that the companies will publicly frame their concerns around “IP theft and tech transfer” instead.

Ukraine’s weapons industry, honed by nearly five years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, has been booming since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in the spring. The conflict with Iran has drained an estimated two-thirds of America’s pre-war Patriot interceptor inventory, sparking discussion about inventory and strategy.

Some defense partners are eager to work with Ukraine, a country with rare recent experience fighting a large-scale land war, and have shown strong interest in collaborating with Kyiv to develop and field cheaper, faster-to-produce alternatives to million-dollar weapons.

The race toward competition is problematic for the defense giants, the official said — not because Ukraine might steal the Patriot — but because the country’s partners might outbuild it, cutting into the current monopoly on antiballistic capabilities and profits.

Trump first pledged the license at the July NATO summit in Ankara, promising Ukraine permission to produce Patriot missiles for the first time.

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving ‘em enough,” Trump said, adding that the companies had not yet been consulted on the plan.

Zelenskyy said the next day that the question had been “resolved politically,” telling reporters that technical teams needed to start work “without delay, so that we can get licenses very quickly and start production in Ukraine as soon as possible.”

Five days after Trump’s pledge, Ukraine, nine European countries and defense heavyweights including Eurosam, Leonardo, Thales and Saab launched a coalition in Paris to field Freyja, an entirely new antiballistic system built around a Ukrainian interceptor priced at roughly one-fifth of a Patriot round.

A week after that, Lockheed unveiled its own cheaper, faster-to-produce Patriot missile at the Farnborough International Airshow, advertising the PAC-3 ACE at roughly $2 million a round – less than half the price of the round Ukraine fires at Russian ballistic missiles today.

The Patriot line rarely moves that fast. Its current top round, the PAC-3 MSE, was first accepted by the U.S. Army in 2015 and took until 2018 to reach full-rate production, per the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

On July 21, one day after the ACE debut, Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, described production talks with Ukraine as simply “early,” telling reporters the company will “support the US Army and the [Trump] administration on what they want to go do,” according to Breaking Defense.

Raytheon’s process “has just started,” with the company working with the U.S. government “to determine what is feasible and what is best for Ukraine,” its president of land and air defense systems, Tom Laliberty, said at the same show.

Two days later, Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X that he was “grateful for the company’s readiness to take our partnership to an even higher level, where Ukraine would co-produce, together with Raytheon, some of the most vital air defense assets – Patriot interceptors,” after meeting representatives of the group.

But when Zelenskyy asked Trump for “several hundred” interceptors at a July 28 Oval Office meeting, the president refused, citing America’s shrunken stocks, The Atlantic reported.

Three days later, Trump reversed course on the license entirely.

“We have not agreed to that,” he said at a Camp David Cabinet meeting. “We’re talking about it, but it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.”

Then, U.S. NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker dampened expectations further on Aug. 3, telling Fox News that “we do not allow anybody but US manufacturers to make those in the United States,” adding that a long-term production agreement “will not be concluded before this winter,” per Euronews.

The deal’s current status is unclear.

“The decision has been made,” Zelenskyy said during an interview on Ukrainian television over the weekend, according to United24. “It was made by the President of the United States and other important American government institutions.”

American officials have yet to respond to Zelenskyy’s latest comments.

Task Force Falcon Strike will utilize one-way attack drones composed of unmanned systems from above, on and below the sea, managed by U.S. military support staff and regional partners, according to a Thursday release.

The move to launch this unit follows CENTCOM’s establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike in December 2025, a Middle East-based task force equipped with one-way attack drones as the military strived to integrate drone technology across the services.

“Task Force Falcon Strike will expand on Scorpion Strike’s success given the tremendous innovation happening among our regional allies and partners,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in the release. “Integrating and deploying our new capabilities together will help us rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon.”

Scorpion Strike was the first to launch an aerial attack drone from a U.S. Navy warship last December, the month of its announcement. The unit also deployed one-way unmanned aerial systems during Operation Epic Fury and during strikes on Iranian port facilities in July with unmanned attack vessels at sea, the statement highlights.

CENTCOM began consulting with and officially inviting regional partners to join Falcon Strike, aiming to expand attack-drone capabilities across the Middle East into a “unified multi-domain, multinational deterrent.”

“The United States military has a lot of strong partnerships and friends in the region,” Cooper said. “We are collectively stronger when we integrate and deploy new capabilities together.”

The release did not specify which regional partners CENTCOM is working with on the unit.

Personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command Central, located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, will lead Falcon Strike’s staff of U.S. and regional representatives after it launched Scorpion Strike, the release states.

The announcement comes as the U.S. continues its war with Iran, which has depleted the U.S. munitions stockpile and caused military leaders to weigh the possibility of developing cheaper anti-drone technology at a faster pace.