By Mike Stone
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Defense startup Castelion said on Friday it has won contracts to integrate its Blackbeard hypersonic strike weapon with current U.S. Army systems, the first step toward allowing the military to place the powerful and nearly unstoppable weapons around the world.
The U.S. 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 defenses.
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.
U.S. companies like Castelion, Stratolaunch, RTX’s Raytheon, unit and Lockheed Martin, are all working to develop hypersonic arms, which could translate to large contracts.
Terms of the integration contracts with both the Army and Navy were not disclosed in a statement from Castelion. U.S. 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.
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 programs 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.
(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)
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