Page 24 - Australian Defence Magazine May-June 2020

24 UAVS SKYGUARDIAN
MAY/JUNE 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
The MQ-9B is designed to share civilian airspace with manned plat- forms and is currently being devel- oped for the UK Ministry of Defence under its Protector RG.1 program, as well as being selected by the Belgian Armed Forces.
“SINCE THE ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF TEAM REAPER AUSTRALIA’S FORMATION BACK IN FEBRUARY 2017, IT HAS GROWN SIGNIFICANTLY AND IS NOW MADE UP OF 10 COMPANIES IN ADDITION TO GA-ASI.”
son said in mid-March. “The US Con- gress plays a significant role in the US budget process and will consider the President’s request as it prepares bud- get legislation for 2021. Until the leg- islation is approved, the pause on Tri- ton funding and the future of Reaper production is not confirmed.”
GA-ASI director of International Strategic Development, Australia, NZ and southeast Asia, Warren Ludwig also
Australia’s Skyguardians will
be operated by the RAAF and the
ground control stations will be locat-
ed within the ISR hub under develop-
ment at Edinburgh. No decision on where the air vehicles will be based has been made public to date, but Towns- ville was mentioned in the context of an armed MALE in the 2016 White Paper.
says that a US funding cut for Reaper will not have an affect on Air 7003.
“Not at all, from an MQ-9B point of view, absolutely not - and from an MQ-9A perspective there is still a lot of produc- tion to occur, with back orders, anyway,” he said to ADM.
How Australia will acquire the Skyguardian capability has yet to be decided by the Commonwealth and it could be a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) purchase agreement with the US Government, or a mixture of both FMS and Direct Commercial Sale (DCS) methodologies. The UK’s Protec- tor RG.1 program for example will be and FMS/DCS mix.
“There are some aspects of this capability that have to be acquired via FMS and there are some aspects which can be acquired via DCS and Defence is still to determine whether they are going to go down an all-FMS route, or follow a hybrid FMS/DCS process,” Ludwig added.
ABOVE: The persistence offered by unmanned platforms is crucial.
US BUDGET AFFECTS
Production of the MQ-9A Reaper was thrown into doubt in February with news that the US Air Force 2021 Fiscal Year budget request will only fund further aircraft this year, effec- tively terminating the USAF acquisition program unless the decision is overturned by the US political process. Similarly, the US Navy 2021 budget request calls for a two-year freeze on production of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton high altitude long endurance UAS. Triton is also being ac- quired by Australia, under Air 7000 Phase 1B and although Defence is playing down any impact to either project, it notes that both are currently under Government review.
“Defence is aware of the US Administration’s budget re- quest to Congress. It is important to note that this request is not the final US Defence budget,” a Defence spokesper-