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The Australian Government has canceled the SkyGuardian armed drone program for the Royal Australian Air Force. Funds are being redirected to New REDSPICE announced intelligence and cybersecurity programs.
REDSPICE, the Resilience, Effects, Defense, Space, Intelligence, Cyber and Supporters program, is a key component of the federal Budget announced on Tuesday.
The scheme aims to double the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) staff over the next four years, creating around 1,900 new jobs. The program’s total budget is A$9.9 billion over the next decade, boosting both offensive and defensive capabilities in cyberspace.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “This is the largest investment ever in Australia’s cyber preparedness.
However, in Friday’s Senate Estimates, defense officials confirmed that a few of these were new money.
Of the total A$9.9 billion, only A$4.2 billion was budgeted for spending over the next four-year estimated period until 2025–2026. And of that, only about AU$588.5 million is new funding.
A large portion of the available funding will come from the now-cancelled AIR 7003 project, a planned A$1.3 billion program to develop an armed drone system. Page.
In November 2019, the government confirmed Defense’s preferred platform is the General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian, a variant of the Predator B drone known as the Guardian in the UK.
AIR 7003 has been scheduled for government review during the current 2021-22 financial year.
Based on Defense Correspondent Asia PacificGeneral Atomics has proposed the development of a multinational service center in Adelaide.
Editor Kym Bergmann writes: “The company has probably spent around $30 million on the project over a decade and is unlikely to recover a dime.
“The scant information available suggests that Defense Secretary Peter Dutton has asked the Department to identify projects that need to be canceled in order to raise funds to hire more staff, particularly in support of the cybersecurity announcement. ”
According to defense officials, about A$10 million was spent on AIR 7003 before it was cancelled.
The remainder of REDSPICE funding comes from other canceled projects. This includes approximately A$3 billion in “both unapproved and approved” funding that has been allocated to the now-abandoned Attack class submarines, the SEA 1000 Future Submarine Program and around AU$236 million for “an ICT remediation project around modernization and mobility”.
Funding also comes from previously planned ASD projects that are now part of REDSPICE.
Witnesses prior to Estimated Friday morning were unable to shed light on where the name REDSPICE came from.
Relevant scope
