Tiberius Aerospace promises big on capability and accuracy with new artillery rocket

If promises are kept, the Sceptre liquid-fuelled ramjet-powered 155mm artillery rocket from Tiberius Aerospace could be a game changer both in capability and how the rocket is supported, as well as its spiral development programme.

The company was founded by serial high-technology entrepreneurs, chief strategy officer Andy Baynes and CEO Chad Steelberg, who outlined the capability and expectations of Sceptre on 19 May.

Sceptre is described by the company as a 155mm ramjet extended-range precision-guided ballistic munition capable of reaching speeds of Mach 3.5 and altitudes in excess of 65,000ft, which is beyond jamming range. It has a length of 155cm and a weight of 47.5kg.

It has an extended range up to 150km depending on payload, which is maximum of 5.2kg, with a circular error probability (CEP) of less than 5m, even in Global Positioning System (GPS) contested battlespaces, compared to over 100m for traditional artillery. It uses both GPS and inertial navigation to provide the high level of accuracy.

Sceptre is planned for use with the NATO standard 155mm artillery platforms and it has already been trialled with US Army M777 155mm/39cal towed howitzer and the company is looking ahead to trials with other weapons such as Archer self-propelled howitzer.

Under the operational scenario the rocket is howitzer launched at Mach 2 and then fins are deployed to provide guidance. The ramjet engine then ignites to take the rocket to Mach 3.5 followed by trajectory shaping, ramjet shutdown and then glide to target from apogee before the use of active guidance.

Beyond these promises of capability the company is also looking to approach the rocket differently in looking to build an “build an open architecture community” around Sceptre, repeatedly pointing to Apple’s iPhone and the app store as a model.

A different way of doing business

Baynes said: “As part of our commercial model we would provide Defence as a Service (DAAS) where customers take an annual subscription to our continuous development model.

“This, in turn, allows us to keep the world's top ramjet engineers on asset and constantly iterating on three to month three-to-six month cycles. If you think about the iPhone, for example, you're iterating on that design and very, very tight cadences and always staying ahead of the market.”

Steelberg added: “We're talking about a US$5 million upfront fee, $2.5 million short term, one year contracts that allows us to pool nations together that then have an egalitarian, equal opportunity to purchase and manufacturing country the weapon given our reference specifications.”

In terms of trials Steelberg said firings had already occurred from “a M777 barrel”.

“We're in the process of doing field trials continuously, now on a cadence of essentially once every three to four weeks, or in the fine tuning of the design to optimise guidance and other systems,” Steelberg added.

“Our expectation is that we will be delivering these in a production volume by the end of 2025 and we have some initial clients that are already on board.

“We're about trying to build weapon systems that are modular and open architecture and are open for third parties to manufacture. Our estimated cost on this, without payload, is $52,000 and we believe that will go down from what we're hearing from our manufacturing partners, when we manufacture at scale.”

Long-range plans

Even at this early stage the company plans to sweat the development work it has already done to develop everything from mortar rounds to smaller calibre munitions but specifically a container multiple launch system and a larger rocket.

One of the plans is the Invictus rocket with a height of 240cm, a diameter of 165mm, a launch mass of 190kg, a payload of 8.5-24kg and a range of 200km with a similar velocity and accuracy to Sceptre.

Another planned is Vault which is a standard container (2.9m long 2.5m wide and 2.9m high) described as having a capacity of six to 60 missiles and a weight of 12,100kg.

Also being developed is Grail which is described as a “weapon performance scoring system [designed to] prioritise the right weapon, for the right targets under the right conditions”.

The Ukraine effect

The owners of Tiberius have made it clear that Sceptre was created with an eye on the war in Ukraine and the company is not alone in focusing on artillery and long-range fires as the land war raged.

The defence industries’ major players like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Rheinmetall have all been working to create systems, rockets and munitions with longer range and greater effect to meet the demands of the war and also the requirements of countries in Europe.

Lockheed Martin’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM, pronounced 'Prism') began development before the Ukraine invasion but is a key example of a new long-range fires weapon with the current version declared as reaching out to almost 500km.

This version itself may in fact have a longer reach and newer versions are expect to go further with better guidance and variable payloads.

The National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) is a medium-range, network-centric air defence system developed collaboratively by RTX Corporation and Kongsberg Aerospace and Defence and has been in high demand notable by Poland, which borders Ukraine.

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