Page 98 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb-Mar 2023

98 AIRPOWER SKYGUARDIAN
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
An MQ-9B SeaGuardian RPAS in flight
GA-ASI
IS THERE A FUTURE FOR AUSTRALIA’S SKYGUARDIAN? As ADM readers will be aware, Defence’s Air 7003 (SkyGuardian remotely piloted aircraft system) was sacrificed in April 2022 to partially fund the Defence Signals Directorate’s
$9.9 billion REDSPICE cybersecurity program.
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
IN THE outcry that followed news of its cancellation – which was announced in an around about manner during a Sen- ate Committee meeting – supporters of Air 7003 lobbied shadow ministers to review the issue if Labor won the Fed- eral election the following month.
Of course, Labor won the election but whether Defence Minister Richard Marles will change the previous govern- ment’s decision will have to wait for the outcome of the forthcoming Defence Strategic Review (DSR).
PROJECT AIR 7003
The General Atomics (GA-ASI) MQ-9B SkyGuardian was selected to fulfil a requirement which largely stemmed from ADF experience in Afghanistan, which called for persistent armed overwatch of Australian Army soldiers when they patrolled outside the wire of their base camps, together with some minor joint capabilities.
Australian troops had often operated under the protec- tion of US Air Force MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper armed RPAS and this formed the initial requirements for what would become the $1.3 billion Air 7003 program. However, by the time the MQ-9B SkyGuardian variant of the Predator/Reaper family had been selected by Australia in November 2019, the capabilities of the platform far out- weighed the original armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements.
When Australia received US Congressional approval to purchase the MQ-9B in April 2021 the configuration re- quested included a multi-mode maritime radar, together with Automatic Identification System (AIS) system, Ray- theon AN/DAS-4 Multi-Spectral Targeting Systems (MST- D) electro-optic infra-red (EO/IR) sensors, GA-ASI AN/ APY-8 Lynx Synthetic Aperture Radars with Ground Mov- ing Target Indicator (GMTI) capability, signals intelligence