Hypersonics are moving from hype to cold hard cash pretty dang fast.
On Friday afternoon, the Navy announced that it’s awarded a big-time $105M contract to hypersonic startup Castelion to integrate its Blackbeard hypersonic missile onto the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and accelerate testing to get the platform to Early Operational Capability by next year.
The contract comes just a few months after Castelion won a $50M Navy contract for “full-scale prototypes, flight testing, and operational fielding” of Blackbeard, which COO Sean Pitt told Tectonic would be an air-launched variant back in February.
Gotta say, that $350M Series B in December is starting to make a whole lot of sense.
Boom on a budget: At this point, Castelion needs no introduction, so we’ll keep this brief. The company—based in El Segundo, California, and founded by three SpaceX alums back in 2022—is laser-focused on producing affordable, mass-producible hypersonic weapons.
- The company’s flagship missile—Blackbeard—is designed to be a more affordable version of something like Lockheed Martin’s “Dark Eagle” Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), which costs about $41M. Pitt told Tectonic last November that Blackbeard runs into the “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
- Last October, the company won “multiple awards” to integrate Blackbeard onto operational US Army and Navy platforms. The Army variant is ground-launched (focused on the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS), and the Navy’s is air-launched.
- With the latest contract, we now know for sure what the Navy’s planning to do with Blackbeard. (Axios first reported on the service’s plans to integrate it on the Super Hornet last month.)
Buzz and boom: Under the $105M award, Castelion will “conduct extensive system safety and certification testing, flight testing, and other integration activities related to carrier-based operations,” the company said in a statement. That’s focused on two main goals:
- Wrapping up the hardware and software integration of Blackbeard onto the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet airframe.
- Completing the Navy’s safety and airworthiness testing and evaluation process that’s required for Blackbeard to be certified for “safe storage, loading, and carriage from an aircraft carrier at sea.”
“The US Navy’s commitment to fielding affordable, innovative hypersonic capability reflects the kind of leadership this moment demands and clear determination to move fast for the warfighter,” Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis said. “We’re grateful for the continued trust in Blackbeard and in our team.”
The contract also covers “live fire test events in the Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility,” per the Pentagon’s contract announcement, which is a handy little hint about what the Navy’s 2027 target for getting Blackbeard ready for operational use is all about (we see you, Davidson Window).
If Castelion’s integration and tests go to plan, there could be a big ‘ole pot of gold waiting for them on the other side.
According to budget documents released last week, the Navy is planning to shell out $1.6B for 4,500 air-launched hypersonic missiles for F/A-18E/Fs over the next five years under the Multi-mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) program. The Navy didn’t disclose contractors for MACE, but we’re guessing Castelion has a good shot at it if they play their cards right.