AUSA 2025: Ground-Launched StormBreaker brings long-range, precision strike to battlefield

The Ground-Launched StormBreaker during its first test-firing at a test range in the Mojave in March 2025. (Raytheon)

Raytheon, an RTX business, test-fired its new Ground-Launched StormBreaker at a private test range in the Mojave Desert in March, according to a video of the test on the RTX website. Raytheon revealed the test in a statement on 24 September.

Raytheon used Internal Research and Development (IRAD) funds to develop the ground-launched system in 50 days, Jon Norman, vice-president of requirements and capabilities for Air & Space Defense Systems at Raytheon, told Janes on 10 October ahead of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference in Washington, DC, from 13 to 15 October.

Rapid development was enabled through digital engineering and computer modelling, he said. Models were additively manufactured to enable maintainers to work with them and identify any issues, Norman said.

“It helped having an existing system that we're just trying to change the performance on,” he added.

Changes included the “transition ring that goes from the back end of the existing StormBreaker to the rocket motor”, Norman said. He added that digital modelling was used to “make sure that it's not going to put it into a flight environment where it would affect either the laminar flow of the air going across the wings on it, making sure we don't have boundary layer separation, or impact the seeker assembly on the front and then making sure that the control actuation system, the fins on it, that they're sized correctly so that it's able to manoeuvre that weapon in that flight regime that we're going to fly it in”.

Range requirements