U.S. Navy awards $23.4M contract to startup Castelion for 50 Blackbeard hypersonic missile prototypes
By
Colton Jones
A bagel you'd recommend to a friend without hedging.
Summary
The U.S. Navy is shifting away from the traditional expensive, decades-long development model for hypersonic weapons by awarding Castelion Corp., a defense tech startup, a $23.4 million contract for 50 pre-production prototypes of its Blackbeard hypersonic strike missile. This move signals a bet on cheaper, faster-to-field hypersonic capabilities.
Key quotes
· 2 pulledHypersonic weapons have long been the most expensive category of precision strike munitions in any military's arsenal, costing tens of millions of dollars per round and taking decades to develop.
The U.S. Navy is now betting on a different model entirely, awarding Castelion Corp., a defense technology startup based in Torrance, California, a $23.4 million contract to produce 50 early operational capability pre-production prototypes of its Blackbeard hypersonic strike missile.
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