ATA Engineering, Inc.

ATA Engineering, Inc., a San Diego-based employee-owned small business subchapter S corporation, delivers aerospace and mechanical engineering research and development, structural and hypersonic systems analysis, and specialized computational modeling to federal agencies primarily as a prime contractor under full-and-open and total small business set-aside vehicles. The company operates across 84% prime and 16% subcontractor awards in a portfolio totaling $152.1 million combined potential value across 318 awards, with strong concentration in SBIR/STTR Phase I and Phase II research contracts and specialized engineering software licensing.

ATA's customer concentration centers on human spaceflight and defense R&D. NASA Johnson Space Center leads by potential value at $74.3 million across 23 awards—primarily delivery orders for structural analysis, testing, and engineering support against the $9.9 million indefinite delivery contract 80JSC021DA009 and related NASA engineering vehicle agreements. The Air Force Research Laboratory follows at $23 million across 46 awards, predominantly SBIR Phase II research in thermal protection systems, multiphysics ablation modeling, flight dynamics analysis, and carbon-carbon composite characterization. Naval Air Warfare Center places 22 awards worth $11 million, anchored by SBIR Phase II and II.5 contracts for advanced propulsion and structural research. NASA's Shared Services Center accounts for 54 awards at $8.2 million, primarily software licensing and support renewals (FEMAP, NASTRAN, ATA software suite). The top five customer agencies by potential value account for 80% of combined dollars. Top customer concentration by award count (54% of awards) reflects high-volume software and equipment calibration work against NASA BPAs and the Shared Services Center's standing contracts; potential-value concentration reveals that large-dollar research awards anchor the portfolio with NASA JSC and AFRL.

ATA holds seats on four named parent vehicles: the $2 million Armstrong Flight Research Center structural dynamics engineering BPA (5 task orders, $174 thousand), the $9.9 million NASA JSC indefinite delivery contract (6 task orders), a $700,000 NASA Armstrong BPA for structural engineering support (multiple ground vibration test calibration calls), and the $250,000 NASA JSC Bigelow Expandable Activity Module indefinite delivery contract. Most recently, ATA was awarded positions on two GSA OASIS+ vehicles effective December 2024—the Total Small Business IDIQ (no dollar ceiling specified in the source) and the Unrestricted IDIQ (no dollar ceiling specified in the source)—plus a $151 billion Missile Defense Agency Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) multiple-award IDIQ effective December 29, 2025, with an initial $500 delivery order in place.

Activity has been volatile and recently downward. Awards per year ran 16 in 2022, accelerated to 33 in 2023, held at 32 in 2024, dropped to 20 in 2025, and only 6 awards are recorded through April 10, 2026 in the source. Ten awards totaling $10.8 million combined potential value face recompete or completion within the next twenty-four months, creating material pipeline risk for the vendor and recompete opportunity for competitors.

Named representative prime work includes a $1.99 million SBIR Phase II contract from the Missile Defense Agency for machine learning-accelerated lethality assessment of directed energy engagements against hypersonic threats (awarded September 30, 2025, completing September 29, 2027); a $1.78 million SBIR Phase II from the Air Force Research Laboratory for rapid AI-powered trajectory optimization for resupply (RAPTOR) (awarded October 7, 2024, completing January 7, 2027); a $1.5 million DARPA SBIR Phase II for multiphysics variable-fidelity signature analysis of hypersonic systems (awarded February 1, 2023, completing February 28, 2026); a $1.32 million SBIR Phase II from Naval Air Warfare Center for advanced research and development (awarded March 25, 2024, completing October 5, 2027); and a $1.25 million Air Force Research Laboratory SBIR Phase II on increased accuracy and efficiency of thermal protection system ablative response simulations (awarded December 29, 2023, completing March 31, 2026). Software licensing and calibration work includes a $110 thousand Siemens Simcenter FEMAP license renewal (awarded August 1, 2025 to Shared Services Center) and ongoing FEMAP, NASTRAN, and ATA software suite maintenance with NASA and DoD facilities.

In subcontractor roles, ATA supports major aerospace and defense primes. Named sub arrangements include work under Northrop Grumman on Stand-In Attack Weapon (SIAW) Phase 2 engineering services and B-series aircraft retrofit technical services; United Launch Alliance on cryogenic smart propulsion flight demonstration integrated upgrades analysis; Boeing on Space Launch System (SLS) Stages Production and Evolution Contract (SPEC) non-production work; BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems on pulsed and continuous wave innovation for integration modeling and simulation and labor efforts; Leidos on Cargo Mission Contract 4 (CMC4) goods and services in support of commercial crew program; and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory on Air National Guard HVAA pod services. Battelle Memorial Institute and Avarint engage ATA for carbon-carbon composite manufacturing variability reduction and HADES Phase 2 R&D support, respectively. Software support shows particular density under NASA's Expendable Launch Vehicle Integrated Support 3 (ELVIS 3) prime, where ATA provides FEMAP and NASTRAN licensing and support across multiple task orders and cost-type amendments issued since mid-2022.

ATA competes predominantly under total small business set-asides in the SBIR/STTR ecosystem; roughly 60% of named definitive contracts and a majority of research awards carry total small business set-aside designations. The company's capability framing—hypersonic systems modeling, multiphysics simulations, thermal protection systems analysis, structural dynamics, computational fluid dynamics, and specialized engineering software services—is heavily research-oriented and concentrated in the Phase I-to-Phase II SBIR/STTR pipeline rather than in production or broad service integrations. Service Contract Inventory data shows minimal reportable invoiced revenue in FY2022–FY2024 (no prime SCI-reportable revenue captured), with roughly 0.7 to 1.2 FTEs delivered across SCI-reportable prime contracts in those years, indicating that SCI captures only a thin slice of ATA's federal work and that the company's federal footprint is dominated by research contracts, software products, and equipment services below or exempt from the $150,000 SCI reporting threshold.

ANALYSIS/TEST DRIVEN DESIGN, MODAL AND GROUND VIBRATION TESTING, THERMAL, STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, FLUTTER & COMPOSITE STRUCTURES ANALYSIS, FATIGUE TESTING & ANALYSIS, TEST/ANALYSIS CORRELATION, TRAINING-TEST & ANALYSIS, OPTIMIZATION, SOFTWARE INTEGRATION