US defence startup Castelion announced on Friday that it has secured contracts to integrate its Blackbeard hypersonic strike weapon with existing US Army systems — marking an important step towards deploying these powerful and almost impossible-to-intercept weapons worldwide.
The US and China are engaged in an arms race to develop the most lethal hypersonic weapons, which travel in the upper atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound and are designed to evade traditional defences.
HIMARS-Blackbeard Collaboration
Castelion will work with the Army to incorporate the Blackbeard weapon system onto operational platforms like the Army’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
HIMARS is now a widely recognized weapon after footage from the war in Ukraine showed the launchers in action.
US companies like Castelion, Stratolaunch, RTX’s Raytheon unit and Lockheed Martin are all working to develop hypersonic arms, which could translate to large contracts.
Edge Over Legacy Players
Terms of the integration contracts with both the Army and Navy were not disclosed in a statement from Castelion. US President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget request to Congress – yet to be enacted – earmarked $25 million for future similar integration.
Blackbeard, Castelion’s first hypersonic strike weapon, is designed for mass production and rapid fielding at a fraction of the cost of legacy weapons.
The company aims to produce thousands of the weapons annually at full rate production, with a target cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit.
Bolstering Pentagon’s Options
The contracts are a significant step in broadening the hypersonic weapon options for the Pentagon which seeks to field more affordable strike capabilities.
China and Russia both have competitive hypersonic weapons programmes in what has become a geopolitical race to develop and field missiles that can change direction while traveling at several times the speed of sound.
(With inputs from Reuters)
