Helden Aerospace Corporation

Helden Aerospace Corporation, doing business as Helden Aerospace Corp, is a small-business aerospace software and engineering services vendor based in Acworth, Georgia, that develops and licenses computational fluid dynamics and aircraft design optimization tools to federal agencies as a prime contractor (97% of recent awards), operating primarily in unrestricted full-and-open competitions without set-aside designation.

Helden Aerospace's core offering is the HeldenMesh software suite — a proprietary computational fluid dynamics and unstructured grid generation platform used for aerodynamic modeling, aircraft design optimization, and aerospace research and development. The vendor operates almost exclusively through software licensing and annual maintenance renewals (firm fixed-price purchase orders) and developmental contracts under the Small Business Innovation Research program. Representative prime work includes a $1.069 million SBIR Phase II award from NASA's Shared Services Center (June 2023) for wall-modeled large eddy simulation unstructured grid generation with HeldenMesh, running through November 2027; a $335 thousand SBIR Phase III contract (September 2022) for HeldenDesign, an automated aircraft drag optimization tool using knowledge-based design tools; a $279 thousand Air Force definitive contract (March 2026) for Configuration Aerodynamics Across Multiple Mach Ranges (CAMMRA), exploring high-lift configurations and takeoff performance of high-speed strike aircraft; and recurring annual HeldenMesh site and single-seat network licenses in the $18,000 to $85,000 range across NASA, Naval Air Warfare Center, and Air Force Research Laboratory. SBIR Phase I work totaled $150 thousand (July 2022). Most recent awards include a $39 thousand HeldenMesh software license to the Air Force (July 2026) and a $20 thousand annual license to GSA's Shared Services Center (September 2026).

Customer concentration is heavy with NASA's Shared Services Center, which accounts for 20 awards (57% of total award count) and $5.2 million in combined potential value. The Naval Air Warfare Center represents six awards worth $227 thousand, the Air Force five awards worth $1.1 million, and Army RDECOM three awards worth $34 thousand combined. Combined potential value across all 35 awards totals $6.6 million, of which $6.4 million (97%) has been obligated. Activity has been steady — four awards in 2022, three in 2023, five in 2024, six in 2025, and five so far in 2026. Over the next twenty-four months, six awards worth $1.6 million combined face ultimate completion and recompete. The vendor holds one position on Air Force Indefinite Delivery Contract FA820221D0001. In its single subcontract role, Helden Aerospace performs as a sub to Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation on an Aircraft Structural Integrity Program software publishers task (September 2025). Across the award footprint, the majority of work is classified under Software Publishers NAICS (12 awards) and research and development in physical, engineering, and life sciences (11 awards), with IT and telecom business application software as a service dominating the PSC coding (11 awards).