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The Queensland-based prime contractor has teamed up with Quickstep and Black Sky Aerospace to form a sovereign guided weapons enterprise.
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The Australian Missile Corporation (AMC) — a recently established subsidiary of munitions company NIOA — has signed collaboration agreements with ASX-listed aerospace composites business Quickstep and propellant and rocket systems manufacturer Black Sky Aerospace.
The collaboration aims to support the Commonwealth government’s endeavour to build a sovereign guided weapons enterprise for the ADF.
This forms part of the AMC’s objective to foster cross-sector co-operation between industry, academia, state governments and Defence.
“Highly capable organisations such as Quickstep and Black Sky Aerospace will be critical to the success of the Commonwealth’s sovereign guided weapons enterprise,” Robert Nioa, CEO of NIOA and the AMC, said.
“We welcome any opportunity to partner through the Australian Missile Corporation collaborative platform and showcase and support the expertise of leading Australian companies.”
Mark Burgess, CEO of Quickstep, welcomed the opportunity to work alongside NIOA and Black Sky to build national resilience.
“Australian industry has broad capabilities, NIOA’s initiative represents an important collaborative framework to promote those capabilities and ensure the success of this sovereign enterprise,” he said.
“We look forward to working with like-minded companies on achieving the Commonwealth’s guided weapons strategy.”
Blake Nikolic, CEO of Black Sky Aerospace, described the agreement as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to build sovereign capability that is “critical in protecting our Australian way of life”.
“Black Sky Aerospace is proud to partner with NIOA and other decorated and respected sovereign manufacturers and to contribute our expertise in the name of creating a truly Australian guided weapons capability,” Nikolic added.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has also expressed interest in supporting the AMC.
NIOA has confirmed that IAI's co-operation would drive innovative local solutions in support of the broader Commonwealth government objective.
Nioa welcomed IAI's interest, commenting, “Working with highly capable organisations such as IAI is critical to the success of the Commonwealth’s sovereign guided weapons enterprise. We welcome any opportunity to bring leading technologies to Australia to enhance the capability of the Australian Defence Force.”
IAI Australia-based managing director Oded Sheshinski affirmed the company's commitment.
“IAI’s strategy to support Australian companies establish their own sovereign capability is based on the successful transfer of knowledge and know-how to selected governments and companies worldwide, providing those countries with, and enabling real sovereign capability," Sheshinski said.
Boaz Levy, IAI’s president and CEO, added, “IAI brings state of the art capabilities, technological excellence and know-how, and vast combat-proven experience, accumulated over many years. We are happy to join hands with NOIA in establishing sovereign Australian defence capabilities."
These latest collaborations come just over a month after Lockheed Martin Australia and Thales Australia finalised a teaming agreement to facilitate co-operation in the design, development and production of Lockheed Martin’s Long Range Anti-Ship Missile – Surface Launch (LRASM SL) variant.
The agreement will specifically focus on booster and rocket motor technologies.
[Related: NIOA establishes sovereign guided weapons spin-off]
