Defence’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator has selected two undisclosed companies for its first mission, signing contracts collectively worth $61.5 million after a period of co-design.
Defence Industry minister Pat Conroy on Wednesday announced that the companies, based in Adelaide and Brisbane, would rapidly develop “technology to degrade integrated air and missile defence systems” as part of the mission’s delivery phase.
The two companies were selected from an initial pool of nine companies involved in the co-design phase for ASCA’s first mission, now known as Black Thorn.

ASCA missions aim to support rapid development of prototype technologies through to production for use by the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The missions are expected to deliver capability that can be put into service within three years.
The mission one problem statements focused on penetrating and degrading advanced integrated air defence systems to support effective long-range strike operations, as well as on improving the processing and synthesis of large amounts of intelligence data.
The two successful companies have signed contracts for an initial 12 months, with follow-on work to be determined as the delivery phase progresses.
The government is not disclosing the names of the two companies or any details of their technologies at this stage “due to security sensitivities”, Mr Conroy said in a statement.
The lack of disclosure is unlike the Ghost Shark co-development project with Anduril – initiated under the former Next Generation Technologies program and now considered ASCA mission zero – which first landed a $140 million contract with Defence in May 2022.
The co-design phase for ASCA’s mission one problem statements concluded at the end of October, around five months later than originally expected, leading to accusations that participants had been “strung along”.
Co-design phase participants were each awarded $300,000 during their role, with the funding expected to be used to help support their participation.
Although ASCA’s mission was always intended to include an initial co-design phase before only a select few companies moved to the delivery phase, Defence minister Richard Marles last year said it “has taken too long for those companies that have failed”.
Mr Conroy said the Black Thorn investment demonstrates the government’s commitment to innovation and high-skilled local jobs.
“We are proud to work with innovative Australian companies that play a critical role in developing technology that can give the ADF a capability edge over a much bigger and more powerful adversary,” Mr Conroy said in a statement.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.