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The TWZ Newsletter

Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.

Castelion, a startup begun by former SpaceX employees, has provided the first view of its Blackbeard hypersonic weapon. The first look at what has been billed as a lower-cost missile comes as the company announces that it has secured $1 billion in new financing, which it says will help get its first hypersonic weapon into production as part of its ambitious manufacturing strategy. While hypersonic weapons have very attractive qualities, they are extremely expensive and that cost will likely keep them from being bought in large quantities or used against wider target sets. Castelion is focused on trying to shift that, building hypersonic capabilies that can be bought in large quantities and used more freely, even if they have reduced performance.

A profile photo at the company’s headquarters reveals a weapon with a ballistic missile-like booster, on top of which is mounted an unpowered hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). The booster brings the HGV to the desired velocity and altitude before releasing it toward its target. The concept is in contrast to air-breathing cruise missiles capable of traveling at hypersonic speeds. Hypersonic speed is generally defined as anything above Mach 5, which larger ballistic missiles also reach in the course of their flights. More precise performance figures for Blackbeard are lacking, but Castelion has previously hinted it could hit targets out to just under 500 miles.

Both stages of the weapon have cruciform fins, while the HGV features a prominent ‘chine’ line along the length of its body, and a slightly beaklike nose. The trolley on which the weapon is mounted provides some idea of its overall size. The blue stripes seen on each stage normally signify that a munition is an inert, non-explosive round utilized for training or tracking purposes. This would indicate a real (unarmed) missile rather than a dummy or mockup.

The company has previously said that it was aiming to have a more finalized Blackbeard design by 2027, so there is still potential for more design changes to come. We have reached out to Castelion for more information.

Castelion has previously released images of various missiles with very different, far more simple designs, which it has said “are representative of the low-cost internally developed test vehicles we use to enable rapid subsystem design iteration and to ground our performance models in real-world test data.”

OCTOBER 5, 2025

Two more development flights completed Sunday.

Each test validates vertically integrated subsystems and components from new suppliers nationwide – tightening the link between engineering and manufacturing to deliver capability faster. pic.twitter.com/t4tKM2cPx9

— Castelion (@Castelion) October 7, 2025

Some of these earlier experimental configurations also look to feature tail sections that are at least heavily inspired by, if not lifted directly from Standard-series surface-to-air missiles as used by the U.S. Navy and other navies globally.

Castelion yesterday also announced it had received Series C financing, comprising $800 million in equity financing and $250 million in committed financing. The equity round values Castelion at approximately $13 billion.

The company says it will use the funds as it transitions from development and flight testing toward producing Blackbeard in significant quantities.

Castelion claims the weapon is the first hypersonic strike system to be designed from the outset to be substantially less expensive and easier to manufacture at scale than traditional high-end missile systems.

“Deterrence depends on unapologetic American strength; highly capable weapon systems that adversaries fear produced in quantities they can’t imagine at a price taxpayers can afford,” Castelion CEO and co-founder Bryon Hargis said.

Another flight test in the books – this time @Spaceport_NM. Our second flight in the past 30 days.

The best way to stay ahead of your adversary in a prolonged competition is to have faster learning cycles than they do. pic.twitter.com/9n776j8XWr

— Castelion (@Castelion) February 19, 2025

The company says Blackbeard has gone from a clean-sheet design to a program of record in less than four years, with fielding targeted for 2027. Castelion has also secured more than $500 million in U.S. military contracts over the past 18 months.

A major part of the company’s strategy is its Project Ranger campus in Sandoval County, New Mexico. Castelion describes the roughly 1,000-acre facility as the largest dedicated hypersonic missile manufacturing site in the United States. The company previously committed more than $250 million of its own capital to infrastructure at the site and says it will now invest hundreds of millions of dollars more to expand production capacity.

That emphasis on manufacturing is central to how Castelion distinguishes Blackbeard from many existing hypersonic programs. The company has designed the weapon and its production processes around the expectation that large numbers will eventually be required.

“There’s a manufacturing renaissance underway and this round turbocharges American production of Blackbeard,” Hargis said. “Designed in California, built in New Mexico, supplied from small and large businesses across the United States; Blackbeard is an example of what America can do when private capital and Government work together.”

In May of this year, the Pentagon outlined plans to acquire at least 10,000 Blackbeard missiles, as well as a similar number of lower-cost cruise missiles, over the next three years.

These framework agreements are part of a larger effort to rapidly expand U.S. reserves of long-range, standoff weapons and, at the same time, strengthen the defense-industrial base so manufacturers can keep producing those weapons at a high rate over the long term.

The U.S. Army has made clear it is interested in employing Blackbeard in a ground-launched mode, as you can read more about here. Army budget documents confirm it is pursuing Blackbeard aggressively, but through a phased approach that offers multiple off-ramps. The service has previously talked of firing Blackbeard from new uncrewed launcher vehicles, as well as from existing M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers. How many Blackbeard missiles are compatible with each of these launch systems is unclear.

“The mission of Blackbeard Ground Launch (GL) is to attack/neutralize/suppress/destroy using hypersonic missile delivered precision fires (seeker based) against time sensitive moving targets and hardened targets at a much-reduced cost per missile than currently exists in the Army inventory,” the Army stated in its proposed budget for the 2026 Fiscal Year. “Blackbeard Ground Launch (GL) is an affordable, mass-produced hypersonic weapon designed for mid-range precision. The Army will leverage advancements in technology, materials, and cost-effective production methods to provide superior capabilities through fast, iterative design cycles, flexible hardware development, and modern manufacturing practices.”

Meanwhile, earlier this year, Castelion announced receipt of a contract from the Navy to integrate Blackbeard onto the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet carrier strike fighter and transition the system to an early operational capability in 2027. This will involve extensive system safety and certification testing, flight testing, and other integration activities related to carrier-based operations. This development may well be connected with halting plans for an air-launched, air-breathing hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile. A version of Blackbeard could also find its way onto Navy ships and submarines, as well as ground-based launchers, as we have discussed in the past.

In fact, the Army has also said that the ground-launched version of the weapon that it expects to receive will leverage an “existing air-launched, extended-range Blackbeard design,” without providing more information.

The U.S. Air Force has also awarded Castelion contracts in the past in relation to long-range strike weapon concepts, and TWZ has previously reached out to that service for more information.

Regardless, Castelion’s ambitions extend beyond Blackbeard. The company says it has been developing a much longer-range precision strike weapon for several years and will now accelerate its development and testing. That system is intended to reuse technologies, components, and manufacturing techniques developed for Blackbeard.

With a huge demand signal from the Pentagon, Castelion is also working on defensive systems based on the same development and manufacturing philosophy. The company says those efforts are focused on lowering costs, increasing production rates, and providing greater magazine depth for air and missile defense.

The strategy responds to the fact that the U.S. military’s growing interest in hypersonic weapons has been accompanied by persistent questions about production capacity and cost. Hypersonic systems are technically demanding, but the ability to manufacture them in meaningful numbers is ultimately just as important as demonstrating that an individual weapon can fly.

Castelion is betting that a different approach to development and manufacturing can change that equation.

“Castelion is at the forefront of defense manufacturing in the nation,” said Tom Ochinero, chairman and founding partner of Interlagos Capital, which provided some of the equity financing. “They’re building the capabilities to produce thousands of hypersonic weapons a year, something the U.S. has never seen before.”

This reflects a steadily growing U.S. military-wide push toward lower-cost precision munitions that are relatively simple to manufacture, while also drawing on non-traditional defense contractors to develop and produce them. Such efforts are widely viewed as essential to building up stockpiles in an economically sustainable manner ahead of a major contingency, such as a large-scale conflict in the Pacific with China, and ensuring a steady supply of weapons throughout a prolonged war.

The next test of this model will be whether Castelion can translate its relatively rapid development timeline into sustained production at the scale it is promising. With Blackbeard targeted for fielding in 2027 and a new generation of longer-range and defensive systems already in development, the company is positioning itself as much as a defense manufacturer as a missile developer, but this remains very much an unproven concept in this notoriously tricky area.

The new view of Blackbeard at Castelion’s headquarters offers a glimpse of the hardware at the center of that effort.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

NewsFeed

Women displaced by Sudan’s war are speaking publicly about surviving rape by Rapid Support Forces fighters. UN investigators verified 546 incidents affecting at least 838 victims, warning the documented cases represent only the tip of the iceberg.

WASHINGTON — President Trump reaffirmed Friday that Hamas has agreed to disarm and relinquish control of Gaza to a newly created Palestinian government, a milestone he cast as a critical step in the long-stalled effort to end the war in the territory.

The agreement, which the president initially announced in a Truth Social post Thursday evening, capped months of negotiations overseen by the Board of Peace, a body created by the Trump administration last year to oversee talks with Hamas and Israel over the future of Gaza.

“As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors,” Trump wrote.

But uncertainty looms over the agreement, with Hamas saying Friday it would begin disarming only if Israel halts all military operations in Gaza and Israeli officials expressing skepticism about the deal in news interviews Friday. Trump, during a Cabinet meeting Friday at Camp David, Md., acknowledged the possibility of the deal going awry, saying it is likely the agreement’s implementation could go through its “ups and downs.”

“It’s a very complex situation over there,” Trump said. “The people are very complex and difficult.”

Trump added that Israel was “very happy” with the deal. He also said that the Board of Peace intends to take possession of Hamas’ weapons when it relinquishes them.

Trump, who faces public pressure over his handling of a broadening war in Iran and the economic impact it is having on Americans, downplayed the unpopularity of his policies and said he hopes Americans vote for Republicans when they head to the polls in November.

At the same time, he defended his military strategies in the Middle East, even as he was unable to provide a clear timeline for when the conflict in Iran will end.

“We’re in for five months, and we have obliterated their military capacity. Again, they’ve got some left, but soon they won’t have some left,” Trump said. He added that he was “losing faith” in Iranian leaders amid negotiations because he said they “lie.”

Trump, however, argued that the deal with Hamas is an indication that his administration’s strategy will succeed in Iran.

“Nobody thought that it would be possible to disarm Hamas. That shows you how much success we’re having with Iran, because if you went four months ago or five months ago, a deal like that would have been impossible,” Trump said.

Hamas, for its part, has confirmed it would begin disarmament, but in a statement Friday said it was contingent on Israel halting all attacks in Gaza and fulfilling provisions of the first phase of a ceasefire deal that was signed in October 2025.

Hamas, which said it was approaching the proposal with “responsibility and positivity,” also took the unprecedented step of agreeing to a sequenced decommissioning of a range of armory, described to include: “police weapons, heavy weapons, military production sites, weapons depots and tunnels, personal weapons and the weapons of militias.”

But the group linked it to a raft of processes, including Israel’s withdrawal from the enclave and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state — both nonstarters for Israel’s government.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had yet to comment on the proposal by Friday afternoon, but several Israeli officials expressed skepticism if not outright rejection of the proposal.

“In response to various publications this morning about political progress in the Gaza Strip, Israel has reiterated that there will be no IDF withdrawal from the current Yellow Line without the genuine disarmament of Hamas,” a senior Israeli official was quoted as saying in the Times of Israel newspaper.

The official referred to the demarcation line behind which Israeli troops withdrew under the ceasefire agreement. When the agreement went into effect in October 2025, the Yellow Line marked off territory comprising about 53% of Gaza. But Israel has repeatedly shifted the line westward, swallowing up more of the enclave with the intent to control 70% of it, according to Israeli officials.

Speaking to CNN on Friday, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, said Israel would have to verify what Hamas is doing with regard to disarmament, “not what they are saying.”

“Disarmament means the weapons are out of Gaza,” he said. He added that the idea of a Palestinian state was “not on the table.”

And in an example of the fervent opposition the deal is likely to face in Israeli political circles, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — a hard-line member of Netanyahu’s government — dismissed the deal as “unacceptable” and that suspending Israel’s attacks on the enclave would only allow Hamas to reconstitute itself.

“The assassinations in Gaza must continue, the encouragement of [Palestinian] emigration [from the enclave] must happen. Israel must win,” he said in a post on Telegram.

The agreement as laid out by the Board of Peace involves a 15-point “roadmap” with several provisions, including security, governance, reconstruction, the deployment of international peacekeeping forces and Israeli withdrawal. Those points, which were agreed to Thursday, are meant to carry out Trump’s broader plan for the territory.

All parties reaffirm their commitment to the “comprehensive plan” announced by Trump in September, which involves stopping the fighting in Gaza, complete Israeli withdrawal from the strip, and “a credible political path that achieves self-determination and [Palestinian] Statehood.”

Israel should “without delay” fulfill its remaining commitments in phase one, including cessation of military attacks. Hamas too should stop all attacks “without delay,” the agreement says.

Once those milestones are reached, the Palestinian-led National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG — which Israel has thus far prevented from entering Gaza — would take on responsibilities in the strip, along with an International Verification Committee that will certify progress on both sides.

The NCAG administers the police force and controls its weapons, and will eventually become the only party in Gaza with arms. It will also administer and implement a process to decommission and store heavy weapons, military production sites, depots of weapons, and tunnels.

The process will be linked to a phased Israeli withdrawal.

Regional and Western governments welcomed the proposal’s announcement while acknowledging the difficulties facing its implementation. It also brought a measure of cautious hope in Gaza, where more than nine months after the ceasefire was signed conditions remain nightmarish.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an assault on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were kidnapped, the enclave has been the target of a furious Israeli military campaign that has killed more than 73,000 people and displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents. Much of Gaza is a rubble-encrusted moonscape, spurring rights groups and the U.N. to accuse Israel of genocide.

Despite Trump’s optimism, the deal comes at a delicate moment for Israel’s leaders, as the country gears up for an acrimonious election fight at the end of October that could see Netanyahu — who is on trial for corruption charges and could be imprisoned if he loses — dethroned.

Already trailing in the polls, he can ill afford appearing soft on Hamas, especially among a pool of candidates eager to excoriate him for his post-Oct. 7 legacy.

“The outrageous gap between Netanyahu’s promises and reality is exposed. After the heavy prices, the fallen and the wounded, he has capitulated in his political weakness without achieving the war’s objectives, instead of ending it from a position of strength,” said Gadi Eisenkot, an election contender and the former military chief of staff responsible for the Dahiyah Doctrine, the Israeli military’s strategy of targeting large-scale civilian infrastructure.

“The State of Israel must not accept a reality in which Hamas survives, rearms, and waits for the opportunity to carry out the next massacre!” Eisenkot wrote on X.

At the same time, with Trump already facing criticism for joining the Israeli leader in assaulting Iran, Netanyahu can’t be seen as scuttling a Trump-brokered agreement in Gaza.

Ceballos reported from Washington, Bulos from Beirut.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, left, speaks with Chief Justice John Roberts in January 2025 in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court on Tuesday announced that it will decide if states and cities can bar people from owning semiautomatic weapons, including AR-15-style rifles. File photo by Chip Somodevilla/UPI | License Photo

June 30 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday announced that it will decide if states and cities can bar people from owning semiautomatic weapons, including AR-15-style rifles.

The court had previously declined to hear this challenge in 2025 and other times previously, CNN reported. It includes an appeal from two Illinois residents who want to buy AR-15 rifles but cannot because of a county ordinance making it illegal to buy or possess some assault weapon types. The case will be combined with one involving Connecticut residents who challenged the state’s ban on the weapons.

The high court’s current 6-3 conservative majority often backs gun rights, NBC News reported. When the court declined to hear a similar case last year, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in an opinion that the court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon,” CNN reported. He said most states do not ban the weapons and those that do are “something of an outlier.”

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia ban the weapons.

People have used assault weapons such as AR-15 rifles and other semiautomatic rifles in multiple mass shootings, including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Twenty children and six adults died in that shooting, leading to the change in Connecticut’s laws to ban the weapons. Nineteen children and two adults died in a similar shooting involving semiautomatic weapons in 2022 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

The court will hear the challenge in its next term, which starts in October.

Airlines have different rules to cope with the new sports gear

A woman was left ‘in tears’ when her ‘lucky’ padel racket was confiscated before her flight home due to one simple error. Henrietta Jones-Chapman brought the racket ‘worth more than £100’ to Bali so she could play the sport during a work trip.

But the 27-year-old says that before her flight home, security staff at Bali Denpasar Airport, Indonesia, confiscated the orange racket. ‘Heartbroken’ Henrietta says she was left in tears and could only think workers were worried she’d start ‘hitting someone round the head’ with it’.

She filmed a TikTok video moments after the incident and captioned it ‘don’t bring your padel racket in your hand luggage coming home from Bali’. The clip, which now has more than 230,000 views, includes footage of Henrietta admitting ‘I’m actually crying, it’s so pathetic’.

She explains she brought the racket into the country in the same handbag so is confused why it’s been taken from her. Henrietta says she had to ‘kick up a fuss’ to convince staff to put the racket in the hold for free so she could keep it.

In Indonesian law padel rackets are not allowed in the cabin because they are classified as ‘dangerous devices’ so she should have checked it into the hold. UK Government guidelines allow tennis rackets to be taken as hand luggage but prohibit ‘heavy bats and sticks’ including ‘baseball, softball and cricket bats’.

The list doesn’t appear to contain a rule on padel rackets, which take a tennis shape but are stringless and more solid. However passengers should check with specific airlines regarding equipment restrictions as some allow them on board and others don’t.

Padel is booming in the UK, with an estimated 1,000,000 people now playing the sport. Player participation has surged by over 2,500% making it the fastest growing sport in the country.

Henrietta, from Harlow, Essex, said: “I was heartbroken. I know it’s a bit dramatic but it’s an item that was important to me. I was gutted. It was not just your average racket, it was more than £100 and personalised by my brother so it was sentimental.

“I took it there [Bali] and it was fine to take there so it was still in my hand luggage on the way out like normal and I had no issues at all. It was in my handbag and I didn’t even take it out at security or put it in the tray, I just left it in the bag.

“Then a lady came over with a sign with a padel racket saying it’s a new law that they’re not allowed to bring it in your hand luggage essentially. The lady said ‘no you can’t bring it through’ and I cried. I don’t know if it was because I was leaving Bali as well. I was panicked.

“She took it off me but she was apologetic because she could see I was crying. It was my lucky racket. I don’t see what the danger is unless I start hitting someone round the head with it on the plane but that could be anything, your laptop.

“Because I wasn’t expecting this I was kicking off a bit of a fuss and getting upset and saying ‘I think there should’ve been a warning before we got to that point’. If I hadn’t kicked off it would’ve just been in the bin and gone. I was really relieved.”

Airlines have their own rules on sports rackets such as Ryanair who prohibit them as ‘blunt instruments capable of causing serious injury’. However, British Airways allows passengers to pack padel rackets as long as they’re in a slim protective case.

Henrietta, who had been working in Bali as a girls-only holiday host, says staff told her about the Indonesian law surrounding rackets being banned from hand luggage. They reportedly added that in future they wouldn’t let her go back to check the racket into the hold.

She’s now warning holidaymakers the should always put their rackets in hold luggage to avoid making the same mistake she did. Henrietta said: “Make sure rackets are in your check-in bag if you’re traveling to Bali. Maybe if you’re worried about it getting broken get a proper case or padel bag.

“Make sure it’s checked in with all your rest of your stuff and not have it in your hand luggage because if I was any later my bag might’ve already gone through. There could’ve been extra costs but I was lucky they didn’t charge me but there would’ve been going forwards.

“Now you know it’s one of those things you can easily do. At least now people know it can be safely kept in the hold. I do think there’ll be a lot of people that travel back from Bali with their racket because it’s cheaper to get one over there and it’s played a lot.”

Bali Denpasar Airport has been contacted for comment.

WASHINGTON  — Licensed gun owners have a right to carry a concealed firearm into stores and other private places unless the owner objects, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The 6-3 decision extends gun rights and strikes down laws in Hawaii, California, New York, New Jersey and Maryland.

Those measures would prohibit carrying guns onto private property that is open to the public unless the owner has expressly authorized them.

“This regime hobbles what the 2nd Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives. We hold that the law is unconstitutional,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said for the court.

The new laws, if upheld, would “impose severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the state’s rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit. When these permit holders leave home in the morning, … they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops, drug stores, grocery stores, ‘big box’ stores, home improvement stores, barber shops or hair salons, dry cleaners, and laundromats.”

The three liberals dissented, saying the law would protect property owners who don’t want guns in their stores.

“There is no constitutional right to enter private property without the owner’s permission, let alone with a firearm,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Trump administration lawyers had joined a coalition of Hawaii gun owners in urging the court to strike down these blue state laws in the case of Wolford vs. Lopez.

They said the laws, if enforced, would mean “a person carrying a handgun for self-defense commits a crime by entering a mall, a gas station, a convenience store, a supermarket, a restaurant or a coffee shop.”

This litigation is part of much broader debate over where guns may be permitted or prohibited.

Four years ago, the justices ruled that law-abiding persons had a right to obtain a permit to carry a concealed gun when they left home. They also agreed there are “sensitive places” where guns may be prohibited, such as schools, courts and other government buildings.

In response, lawmakers in California and Hawaii adopted their own lists of “sensitive places.” They imposed restrictions on concealed weapons at parks, beaches, playgrounds, places of worship and public transit as well as bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Gun owners sued but the 9th Circuit Court refused to block most of those restrictions in a single 83-page opinion covering Hawaii and California. Both states would prohibit carrying guns onto private property open to the public without the owner’s consent.

The 9th Circuit upheld that measure in principle but said California went too far by requiring the owner to post a prominent sign expressly authorizing guns.

“While today’s ruling in Wolford is disappointing, owners still have every right to decide whether firearms are allowed in their stores and businesses,” said Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment Litigation at Everytown Law. “The Supreme Court may have changed the default rule, but it cannot take away a private property owner’s authority over their own land.”

The Firearms Policy Coalition said the court had properly protected gun rights and barred states from carving out their “own regional version of the 2nd Amendment.”

“The historical record does not support forcing peaceable people to obtain advance permission before carrying for self-defense in places held open to them,” the group said.

Last week, the court upheld gun rights in a Texas case and said the government may not make it a crime for an “unlawful user” of a drug such as marijuana to own a gun.

Joe Cordina faces a court appearance in July after being charged “with assault and threatening a person with an offensive weapon in a public place”.

The 34-year-old Welshman is a former super-featherweight world champion and had been due to fight for the WBO lightweight title in the United States on 4 July.

South Wales Police (SWP) has confirmed Cordina and another man have been charged in connection with an incident that took place outside a petrol station in the Cardiff suburb of Pentwyn last February.

SWP stated: “Joseph Cordina, 34, from Pontprennau, has been charged with assault and threatening a person with an offensive weapon in a public place. He is due to appear at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on July 7.

“Jamie O’Brien, 32, from Pentwyn, has been charged with assault and is due to appear at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on July 28.”

Cordina was due to fight American Abdullah Mason in Cleveland on Saturday, 4 July, but said on Wednesday the United States embassy in London turned down his visa application.

Cordina revealed in a social media post on Wednesday that he had been denied a US visa, saying: “I was due to fly to the United States this week. A couple of days back I went to the US embassy in London and they basically denied me a visa.

“I tried to explain certain things, and had all the paperwork to back it up, and they wasn’t having it.

“They just sort of basically told me you ain’t getting in.”