Cardinal Scientific, Inc.

Cardinal Scientific, Inc., headquartered in Waldorf, Maryland, is a small business manufacturer that provides precision machining, fabrication, welding, and custom instrumentation for aerospace, defense, and scientific applications, operating almost exclusively as a prime contractor (97% of recent awards) under total small business set-asides across federal customers. A Subchapter S corporation registered with SAM.gov since March 2002, Cardinal Scientific performs work at facilities in St. Charles and St. Inigoes, Maryland, with a primary NAICS footprint in machine shops (99 awards) and miscellaneous fabricated metal product manufacturing (35 awards). The vendor competes predominantly under total small business set-asides; nearly all prime awards and IDV calls carry that designation.

Cardinal Scientific's customer concentration heavily favors the Department of the Navy. The top five funding agencies account for 76% of recent awards by count, but the dollar concentration diverges sharply: the Naval Air Warfare Center dominates potential value at $40.5 million across 23 awards, while Naval Sea Systems Command leads by volume with 114 awards valued at $18.2 million combined. Army Training and Doctrine Command (3 awards, $26.4 million) ranks second by dollar value, anchored by large-value awards outside the historic Navy-NASA baseline. NASA Glenn Research Center and the Office of Naval Research round out the top five. This concentration signals vulnerability to Navy program recompetes and limited diversification into non-traditional customers.

Cardinal Scientific holds four active blanket purchase agreements and two single-award indefinite-delivery contracts with Navy and NASA organizations. The largest vehicles include a $4.999 million BPA with Naval Air Warfare Center (no set-aside, 42 task orders, $1 million combined potential value to date), a $4.999 million NASA Glenn Research Center BPA (multiple-award, fabrication and welding services, ceiling through May 2027, 11 task orders to date for propulsion components and test hardware), and a $2.877 million single-award IDC with Naval Air Warfare Center (May 2028 completion) for compartment cooling equipment sets supporting the MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft System. Cardinal Scientific also holds a $364 thousand single-award IDC with Naval Air Warfare Center for radome holding fixtures (through September 2027) and a $1 ceiling BPA with NASA Langley Research Center (multiple-award, general and precision machining through August 2026). A $10 million single-award NAVSEA R&D hardware and services IDC grounds a long-standing Navy relationship.

Recent representative work illustrates the vendor's core capability: a $850.7 million delivery order under the Naval Air Warfare Center IDIQ for compartment cooling sets (May 2025), a $82.7 thousand NASA Glenn BPA call for a CE-13 high-temperature project Inconel igniter spool (August 2023), a $405.5 thousand NAVSEA delivery order for an MK1 MOD 0 worktable (June 2022), and multiple small fixed-price purchase orders from NAVSEA for shear pins, metalwork assemblies, RF frames, and precision components ($10 thousand to $250 thousand range). Awards span custom-engineered hardware for shipboard and aircraft systems, test fixtures, thermal management components, reverse-engineered parts, and first-article testing.

Activity has remained relatively stable year over year (12 to 17 awards annually over the past five years) with declining recent volume (only 3 awards in 2026 to date). Total combined potential value across all 252 prime and sub awards in the source data reaches $95.9 million, though only $13.3 million (14%) has been obligated, indicating a large reserve of option and future-order capacity across the IDV and BPA vehicles. No recompete cliff data is present in the source, but the single-award IDC with Naval Air Warfare Center expires May 2028, and the radome fixtures IDC expires September 2027, creating near-term recompete exposure on two of the vendor's three largest vehicles.

Cardinal Scientific subcontracts minimally (7 sub-awards, 3% of total), appearing primarily under General Dynamics Information Technology and Applied Research Associates on Mark 41 Vertical Launching System upgrade and engineering services work, and on explosive-ordnance-disposal unmanned-aerial-system prototype assembly. These engagements represent niche teaming rather than a core subcontracting model; the vendor's business is driven by prime awards and direct task orders against established IDVs.

ELECTRO-MECHANICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, PROTOTYPE & MODEL FABRICATION; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING SERVICES; TEST FIXTURES; TEST DEVELOPMENT & EVALUATION; COMPUTER MODELING; TDP. MACHINE SHOP SERVICES, ENGINEERING & PROGRAM SUPPORT SE