Lockheed Martin team showcases cross-domain, multi-mission NGC2 prototype during Balikatan in the Indo-Pacific

SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii, May 12, 2026 — Team Lockheed Martin’s NGC2 prototype was put through a division-level trial during the Balikatan 2026 exercise, demonstrating a unified data platform that integrated sensors, fires systems and airspace management to compress sensor-to-shooter timelines and provide a real-time view of the battlefield across the Indo-Pacific.

The effort brought together the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, the Capability Program Executive Command and Control Information Network, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, I Marine Expeditionary Force, I Corps, and the 613 Air Operations Center. Participants executed an operational exercise simultaneously from Hawaii, the continental United States and the Philippines.

It marked the first NGC2 division-level demonstration of cross-domain data sharing in the 25th Infantry Division’s operational environment across multiple, geographically dispersed locations. Insights from the Balikatan Counter Landing Live Fire exercise are expected to inform Army modernization decisions for large-scale combat operations in the Indo-Pacific.

During the event, NGC2 linked sensors and edge nodes in the Philippines with command nodes in Hawaii and the continental United States, using cloud-enabled operations support to produce a live, unified operational picture for U.S. and allied forces across a distributed, contested theater. In a counter-landing live-fire demonstration, soldiers tested end-to-end sensor‑to‑shooter workflows while Apache helicopters, Howitzers, Mortars and HIMARS executed fires. The system recorded and displayed a real-time picture of the operation, including performance metrics and battle damage assessments.

Airspace deconfliction was managed through a unified interface that integrated data from multiple radar and data links into a single operational view, streaming live GPS and flight path data to enable real-time visualization of airspace lanes and immediate “safe‑to‑fire” cues for pilots and ground shooters. Allied forces operated as a unified system, sharing mission data between divisions to strengthen a common operating picture and coordinate fires across multiple security classification levels, with data ingestion, storage and distribution designed to provide a consistent, authoritative view in an operational environment.

“During Balikatan, success came down to how well we could integrate across Army units, joint forces and Indo-Pacific partners,” said Chandra Marshall, vice president of Multi-Domain Combat Systems at Lockheed Martin. “That ability to operate seamlessly across the coalition is what makes Team Lockheed Martin’s NGC2 prototype real.”

Balikatan is a bilateral exercise between the U.S. and Philippines designed to strengthen regional security through combined air, land, sea, cyber and space operations. The demonstration was conducted in conjunction with Lightning Surge 3, the third in a serialized set of events aimed at incrementally adding capability to the NGC2 data layer.

Lockheed Martin is collaborating with industry partners including Raft, Lyntris, Rune and Amazon Web Services to integrate capabilities into NGC2. Ongoing soldier feedback is being incorporated into each Lightning Surge event to add new functionality as missions evolve, with Lightning Surge 4 set to focus on a logistics mission thread in support of the 25th Infantry Division.