The company said the award marks an important step in Blackbeard’s transition from development and flight testing toward operationally relevant production. The order will support continued maturation of Castelion’s low-cost, highly manufacturable long-range hypersonic strike weapons.
Castelion said the work will exercise its expanding production capacity at the Project Ranger manufacturing campus in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Work under the award will be performed primarily in Rio Rancho, with supporting work in Torrance, California.
The company said the work is expected to be completed in 2027. The award follows earlier Army and Navy platform integration contracts.
“Blackbeard was designed from the beginning to support our nation’s conventional deterrence,” said Bryon Hargis, Co-Founder and CEO of Castelion. “This award reflects the Navy’s continued commitment to and leadership in rapidly advancing affordable, manufacturable long-range strike capability, and moving Blackbeard toward early operational use.”
Castelion said the order also follows its investment of more than $250 million in Project Ranger. The company described the site as a 1,000-acre manufacturing campus in New Mexico built for hypersonic production at scale.
Castelion builds advanced strike weapons focused on rapid, affordable and scalable production. The company said Blackbeard is the first U.S. hypersonic system engineered from inception for industrial-rate output, commercial unit cost and continuous flight test iteration.
The company is headquartered in Torrance, California. It has manufacturing operations in New Mexico, Texas and California, as well as offices in Washington, D.C.
