ASCA starting to accelerate supply of vital technology

Defence’s ASCA has been moving quickly to bring Australian-made uncrewed aerial systems (UASs) into frontline service.

Head of Defence’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA), Major General Hugh Meggitt AM. Picture: AMDA Foundation Limited

Informed by TV images of the war in Ukraine, commentators routinely describe the ADF as a “drone-free zone”. While that was never actually true, Defence’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA), has been moving uncommonly quickly to bring Australian-made uncrewed aerial systems (UASs) into frontline service. It is also looking for Australian anti-UAS technologies, as well as other advanced capabilities for the ADF.

The goals of this $3.4bn organisation are wider than UASs and are stated simply by its new head, Major General Hugh Meggitt: “ASCA’s mission is to accelerate the development and transition of asymmetric capabilities into the ADF through innovation in order to meet Defence’s priority needs.”

In April last year, ASCA ran a competitive trial of 10 separate Australian sovereign UAS designs. By July it had named Sypaq and Quantum Systems as winners of hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts to complete development of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance UASs and then manufacture 110 each for delivery this year.

In August, Defence announced $6.6m in contracts for AMSL Aero, Boresight and Grabba Technologies to build 100 UASs each. These will be used, among other things, to replace Chinese-made DJI drones, which are used right across the government, and for research and training in the use of UASs.

They will be acquired by mid-year using a Defence standing offer panel.

Last month, ASCA announced Mission Talon Strike, a Request for Tender for Loitering Munitions – essentially drones that destroy things, Ukraine-style – which closed in May with deliverables to flow from June 20. And it has launched Mission Syracuse, a search for anti-UAS technologies that will go with the Army’s mobile Counter Small UAS (C-sUAS) program, Project LAND156. This closed earlier in June with deliveries to commence in September.

The ADF wants to field UASs and other new technologies at scale but won’t over-invest: it’s balancing the ability to produce the latest equipment rapidly with the risk of having lots of obsolescent equipment on the shelf. However, some of these capabilities are exportable, which means international demand can help build essential volume to keep design offices, production lines and supply chains “hot”.

These missions “are a good indicator of the depth of Australia’s innovation capacity and the potential to expand the defence industrial base,” says Meggitt. “By partnering with Australian industry and research organisations, ASCA seeks to deliver the best available sovereign capability options to the warfighter at speed.”

To determine and then satisfy the ADF’s needs, earlier this year ASCA was shifted from Defence’s science group to the Vice-Chief of the Defence Force Group. It is now closely aligned with the key players in VCDF Group, including the Heads of Force Design, Force Integration and Strategic Plans.

Since being established in 2023, ASCA has undertaken 10 “approaches to market” including the Ghost Shark autonomous underwater vehicle program. All are, to some extent, classified.