Washington: As the US Army pushes to find new, non-traditional industry partners, it is planning to test out a developmental hypersonic round from defence startup Castelion that can be launched from a future autonomous launcher, according to budget documents and officials.
For months, service officials — including Alex Miller, the Army Chief’s chief technology officer — have been teasing a future Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) variant that could “double the range” of the baseline weapon but at a cheaper price point. Recently published fiscal 2026 budget documents shed light on that plan, dubbed HX3, under which the service said it plans to test Castelion’s Blackbeard hypersonic missile as a way to hit “time sensitive moving targets and hardened targets” at a “much-reduced cost per missile than currently exists in the Army inventory.”
“Blackbeard GL [Ground Launch] is not a replacement to the Long Range Hypersonic Weapons (LRHW) as it will not reach similar velocities nor range,” the service wrote. “The goal of Blackbeard GL is to deliver approximately 80 (percent) of the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 4 capability at a significantly reduced cost.”
Castelion Cofounder and Chief Operating Officer Sean Pitt confirmed that the company is developing Blackbeard but referred other questions about the Army’s plan back to the service.
In 2023, the service tapped a Lockheed Martin team and a Raytheon Technologies-Northrop Grumman team to work on competing PrSM Inc 4 designs for a round that can fly more than 1,000 km, possibly doubling the range of the baseline configuration. Meanwhile, the service began rolling out plans to design a new autonomous launcher to pair with what it was calling PrSM Inc 5 — possibly this new HX3/Blackbeard missile.
While Army documents do not detail how HX3 project fits into the PrSM portfolio, they do shed light on plans to test out and, possibly, acquire Blackbeard.
