- Navy orders first 50 Blackbeard hypersonic missiles for a total of $23.4 million
- Each Blackbeard missile will reportedly cost under $300,000 when full production begins
- Castelion has received three separate Navy funding rounds since February 2026
A California defense startup is now selling hypersonic missiles priced like a luxury vehicle instead of a mansion, marking a shift in weapon pricing.
Castelion’s Blackbeard missile travels in excess of Mach 5 and reportedly costs under $300,000 per completed round, a fraction of typical hypersonic pricing.
The price became real on June 16, 2026, when the US Navy ordered the first 50 production rounds for $23.4 million.
The Navy’s first real purchase
The order also covers 50 shipping and storage containers that run primarily through Castelion’s sprawling manufacturing campus in New Mexico.
It’s the third Navy payment in five months, following $50 million in February to push Blackbeard from prototype to operational use.
In April 2026, the Navy committed an additional $105 million specifically to integrate Blackbeard onto the F/A-18 and perform the airworthiness tests required before a missile can operate safely from a carrier deck.
According to Bryon Hargis, CEO and co-founder of Castelion, the funding reflects the Navy’s commitment to “promote affordable, manufacturable long-range strike capability.”
Founded by former SpaceX engineers, Castelion has already completed more than two dozen flight tests within three years.
One of these flight tests took place at the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah in the latter part of 2025.
Castelion has also partnered with unmanned boat manufacturer Saronic to demonstrate the launch of Blackbeard missiles from a robotic surface vessel at sea.
If the test continues to be successful, the final plan is to buy Blackbeard missiles by the thousands instead of by the dozen.
In May 2026, the company signed a framework agreement with the Department of War covering a multi-year production of around 500 weapons annually.
Cheaper parts from unrelated industries
The affordability behind Blackbeard rests heavily on components borrowed from numerous industries far removed from traditional aerospace manufacturing methods and suppliers.
Chief Operating Officer Sean Pitt said the company uses automotive-grade field-programmable gate arrays originally built for driver assistance systems and electric vehicles.
These automotive processors cost about one-tenth as much as aviation equivalents and arrive about six times faster, Pitt said.
Castelion has also replaced aerospace grade metal tubing with precision machined tubing originally designed for fracking operations in the oil and gas sector.
These tubes withstand heat and pressure levels comparable to rocket engine requirements, yet come from many more suppliers at lower prices.
Rival startup Anduril has adopted a similar approach, using compounding technology for the pharmaceutical industry to process rocket engine fuel far faster than old methods.
Castelion, recently valued at nearly $3 billion, has secured Pentagon contracts covering more than 500 hypersonic weapons under current deals.
Via Defense news
