Overview
- The Navy placed a $23.4 million firm-fixed-price order with Castelion for 50 Blackbeard pre-production prototypes and 50 storage and shipping containers, with work to be done mainly in Rio Rancho, New Mexico and support in Torrance, California and expected to finish in 2027.
- Castelion says the order will exercise capacity at its Project Ranger manufacturing campus and advance Blackbeard’s transition from flight testing to production-relevant deliveries following earlier integration contracts.
- The company frames Blackbeard as engineered for industrial-rate output and commercial unit costs and points to more than $250 million invested in Project Ranger to enable scale production, but those cost and rate claims come from Castelion and are not independently confirmed.
- Castelion and partner Saronic are pursuing maritime launches and plan an at-sea hypersonic launch demonstration from an unmanned surface vessel in 2027 while the Navy runs related unmanned ship testing through October 2026.
- Before broader fielding the system must clear more flight and integration tests and verifications of performance, safety, command-and-control and cyber resilience, with the Navy and industry expected to use the prototype deliveries to resolve those issues.