U.S. Navy orders 50 prototypes of low-cost Blackbeard hypersonic missile

On June 12 2026 the U.S. Navy awarded Castelion a contract worth about 23.4 million dollars for 50 pre-production prototypes of the Blackbeard missile, work running through December 2027. Blackbeard is a hypersonic strike missile designed to fly above Mach 5, on flight paths far harder for current air defenses to intercept than a slower missile on a fixed arc. Hypersonic weapons have long cost tens of millions of dollars per round and taken decades to develop; this program is explicitly built to produce them at a price and rate earlier programs never attempted. Separately, Saronic and Castelion said on June 11 they plan to fit Blackbeard onto an unmanned surface vessel, with a sea launch demonstration targeted for 2027. Sources: defence-blog.com, armyrecognition.com, Breaking Defense.

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