The global leader in signals intelligence data and analytics, today announced its successful participation alongside Lockheed Martin in Valiant Shield 2026, a U.S. Pacific Command biennial field training exercise conducted June 22 to July 1, 2026, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Japan, and at sea around the Mariana Islands Range Complex. The exercise brought together joint U.S. forces to advance multi-domain operations across sea, air, land, and cyber environments in a high-intensity, blue-water scenario.
During the exercise, HawkEye 360 successfully demonstrated tactical direct downlink proving relevance to Emission Controlled (EMCON) environments. Multiple commercial space-based RF signals intelligence collections per day were relayed to Lockheed Martin’s edge processing node which hosted a bundled suite of HawkEye 360 and Lockheed Martin processing to generate high precision track custody for advanced defense systems such as the LM Aegis Combat System. This machine-to-machine pipeline, powered by a combination of Lockheed Martin’s CommandIQ® command and control integration platform and HawkEye 360 operational on-orbit collection and signal processing, enabled operators to seamlessly ingest and cross correlate commercial, shareable sensor data with other tactical data sources, transforming data into actionable target surveillance tracks to enhance situational awareness and to provide decision support across diverse missions.
“Valiant Shield demonstrated again that shareable target quality ISR products derived from HawkEye 360 RF data are readily available to enable missions for US and ally warfighters,” said Todd Probert, Chief Operating Officer at HawkEye 360. “We debuted commercial RF tactical direct downlink capabilities, enhanced the track custody performance of our integration with Lockheed Martin while significantly improving latency performance. Together with Lockheed Martin, we have unlocked an unprecedented US and coalition CONOP where shareable commercial signals intelligence directly impacts operational success.”
The exercise highlighted the warfighter demand for high quality commercial signals intelligence in support of joint force operations in contested environments. HawkEye 360’s direct integration into this dynamic operational environment enabled US and defense partners to maintain target track custody across vast areas, and tip/cue other systems. Once adopted, the proven combination of agile commercial sensing with fielded tactical edge systems will become a force multiplier for US and coalition operations.
