PETER LA FRANCHI / CANBERRA
Country's new capability plan re-evaluates space-based surveillance and introduces the intention to acquire UAVs
Australia is believed to have merged two parallel space-based surveillance requirements as part of the new Defence Capability Plan it released last month.
Purchase of an Australian-owned and controlled surveillance satellite appears to have been dropped in favour of reliance on access to US space-based sensors combined with the acquisition of at least six Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned air vehicles.
Previously, for at least five years, the Australian Department of Defence had sought to develop a wholly Australian-controlled signals processing station for the US Department of Defense's Space-Based Infrared Surveillance (SBIRS) system.
The department has also supported a satellite surveillance project, which included funded studies of infrared, electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar sensors.
Australia has had extensive access to US low-earth orbit optical surveillance data since late 1995. In 1996, the government funded "Project Galant", a still-classified programme to develop an enhanced satellite image-processing system.
The public version of the new capability plan makes no reference to satellite surveillance projects, but says they are now structured as a three-phase acquisition with phase one "removed as a separate proposal".
The Australian Government funded the development of a prototype SBIRS ground station in the classified component of the May 2000 Australian defence budget. That prototype is expected to become operational in 2002-03.
The new plan says funding of up to A$150 million ($78million) for Phase 2 is to be sought in the May 2005 budget for "information technology, communications and training infrastructure to support space-based surveillance".
Phase 3, to be funded in the 2010 budget and valued at up to A$100 million, will "provide for capability upgrades, in particular to maintain relevancy, effectiveness and efficiency with rapidly changing technologies and related opportunities".
The revised schedules for the project closely match those proposed for the roll out of the USA's SBIRS-Low and SBIRS-High components.
A merger of Australia's two projects would indicate that Canberra now intends to fulfil its original plan through the on-going Project Galant and with the Global Hawk purchase as the core visual sensor in its evolving wide area surveillance architecture.
The new plan contains funding provision of up to A$150 million in the May 2005 defence budget for an RQ-4 purchase.
High-altitude endurance UAVs were assessed by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in 1998. Galant has a budget of A$113 million for Phase 1, 52% more than the original 1996 approval. The increase is attributed to "additional functionality".
Source: Flight International
