Castelion has secured Army and Navy integration awards for its Blackbeard ground-launched hypersonic family and plans live-fire demonstrations to speed fielding. The program follows a two-phase Middle Tier Acquisition rapid-prototype model focused on producing affordable, mass-producible hypersonic rounds compatible with HIMARS.
Contracts from the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy will fund platform integration and demonstration activities designed to validate capability and accelerate adoption of lower-cost long-range conventional deterrence. Castelion reports Blackbeard has completed more than 20 development flights and was engineered with mass production in mind, positioning it to move rapidly into field testing.
The Army’s FY2026 budget lists the effort as “HX3, All Up Round and Canister,” characterizing it as a seeker-equipped precision strike round for time-sensitive moving targets and hardened sites. Early integration will use modified MLRS family pods and M142 HIMARS fire control for demonstrations while bespoke launcher systems are developed.
