A California startup has secured a major U.S. Navy contract to advance a hypersonic weapon into live-fire testing in the Indo-Pacific. The award demonstrated growing reliance on smaller firms to deliver next-generation capabilities at scale and lower cost.

The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst issued a $104,998,566 contract modification to Castelion Corp. The company, based in Torrance, will push forward development of its Blackbeard hypersonic weapon under a firm-fixed-price agreement.

Contract award sets program in motion

Announced April 24, the award falls under a Small Business Innovation Research Phase III effort tied to the topic “Low Cost Highly Manufacturable Long Range Strike Weapon Production.” The program aims to deliver not only a hypersonic system but one that can be built in large numbers at a manageable cost.

Work will take place in Torrance and is scheduled for completion by January 2028. Funding includes $33.98 million from fiscal year 2025 Navy research, development, test, and evaluation accounts, with the remaining $71.02 million coming from fiscal year 2026 funds. Unlike many defense contracts of this size, the award was completed, showing a greater effort to open advanced weapons development to emerging companies.

Testing moves into Indo-Pacific theater

Castelion’s responsibilities include defining final early operational capability requirements for the Blackbeard weapon. This requires setting the performance benchmarks needed for the system to be considered operational.

The company will also deliver integration configurations that enable the weapon to be mounted and launched from its intended platforms. These engineering packages are essential for transitioning from prototype to deployable system.

The key phase will involve live-fire testing in the United States Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility. Conducting these tests in the region puts the weapon in realistic conditions aligned with its designed mission environment. This procedure allows validation of performance covering actual ranges, climatic conditions, and flight profiles. 

Speed and maneuverability reshape strike capability

Hypersonic missiles travel at speeds above Mach 5, or above 3,800 miles per hour. Most hypersonic missiles can perform evasive maneuvers while in flight, hindering detection and interception, unlike regular missiles.

A system traveling at Mach 8 can exceed 6,100 miles per hour. At those speeds, defensive systems have limited time to detect, track, and respond. The ability to change course mid-flight makes interception more difficult.

The combination of these features makes hypersonic weapons well-suited for engaging critical targets such as command centers, anti-aircraft systems, ships, and supply bases. The Blackbeard project aims to achieve all this while overcoming the obstacles that have hindered previous attempts at hypersonic weaponry.

Low cost and scalability 

The focus on “low cost, highly manufacturable” indicates one of the main problems facing the development of hypersonics. Most currently available hypersonics are costly per unit, which limits their deployment capability.

Lowering costs and boosting manufacturing capabilities would lead to greater use. A cheaper missile grants flexibility in target acquisition and continuous deployment amid conflicts.

This choice by Castelion marks a move away from conventional defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. They have driven hypersonic projects for decades, but usually through cost-plus agreements in which the risk falls on the government.