The INSIDER daily digest -- Nov. 4, 2020

Today’s INSIDER Daily Digest has news on a foreign military sale, a company’s COVID-19 testing plan, a budget insight tool that is no longer publicly available and the Army’s newest heads-up display.

The State Department announced a new foreign sale:

State Department clears $600 million MQ-9B SkyGuardian sale to Taiwan

The State Department has authorized a $600 million sale of four General Atomics-made MQ-9B SkyGuardian unmanned aerial vehicles to Taiwan under a new government policy that loosens drone export restrictions.

A contractor says it’s expanding COVID-19 testing to ensure the business can continue:

Mercury expands COVID-19 testing program, says it will ‘de-risk’ business as cases surge

Mercury Systems said this week it has expanded its on-site COVID-19 testing to seven manufacturing locations in an effort to keep employees healthy and maintain business continuity.

The public has been shut out of a budget research tool:

DOD moves Google-like tool for searching U.S. military weapon spending behind firewall

The Defense Department has slammed the door on public access to a Google-like research tool that allows users to quickly navigate the U.S. military’s unclassified and unwieldy annual budget -- now more than $700 billion and spread across scores of volumes, some thousands of pages long -- moving the important resource behind a firewall where it sits with classified research accessible to government employees only.

The Army is finishing up reviewing a new heads-up display:

Third IVAS assessment wrapping up this week

The Army this week is wrapping up its third user evaluation, or soldier touchpoint, of its next-generation augmented reality heads up display, the service announced today.