Penta Research Inc.

Penta Research Inc., doing business as Penta Research, operates as a small-business prime contractor and subcontractor delivering missile-defense research and development, modeling and simulation, software engineering, and advanced defense systems engineering to the Department of Defense and defense agencies. The Huntsville, Alabama-based for-profit Subchapter S corporation competes predominantly under full-and-open (non-set-aside) and Total Small Business set-aside designations on defense prime contracts, while operating as a subcontractor to major primes across Army, Navy, and Air Force programs.

Penta Research holds positions on three active IDIQs: the newly awarded Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) multiple-award contract with the Missile Defense Agency (ceiling value $151 billion, awarded December 29, 2025, through December 28, 2035); the Seaport Next Generation (Seaport-NXG) multiple-award vehicle with Naval Sea Systems Command (ceiling value $4 billion, awarded January 2, 2025, through January 1, 2029); and the OASIS+ Total Small Business set-aside IDIQ with the General Services Administration (ceiling value no specified dollar ceiling, awarded December 19, 2024, through December 18, 2029). The OASIS+ vehicle carries 46 task orders, the largest task-order footprint across Penta Research's prime vehicles. Recent prime work includes a $1.8 million SBIR Phase II contract with the Missile Defense Agency for playback and restart capabilities of federated simulations (awarded October 31, 2024, cost-plus-fixed-fee, ultimate completion October 30, 2026), a $1.765 million Total Small Business set-aside definitive contract with Naval Sea Systems Command for Space-Based Infrared System High (SBIRS High) development (awarded August 19, 2024, through August 19, 2027), and multiple SBIR Phase I and Phase II awards from the Missile Defense Agency spanning artificial intelligence and machine learning in scenario planning, DevSecOps approaches to weapon-system component testing, and threat assessment modeling.

Customer concentration tilts decisively toward defense. The Missile Defense Agency anchors 33 awards carrying $12.3 million combined potential value; the Department of the Army accounts for 26 awards, with the Army Acquisition Support Center's PEO Simulation, Training and Instrumentation component holding 17 awards and PEO Missiles and Space holding 9 awards; the Department of the Navy Strategic Systems Programs accounts for 7 awards. Naval Sea Systems Command, however, dominates potential-value metrics at $4 billion combined across four awards—driven almost entirely by the Seaport-NXG IDIQ ceiling. This divergence signals that most of Penta Research's award count flows from smaller SBIR and task orders while the Navy vehicle represents substantial future ordering capacity.

Penta Research operates primarily as a subcontractor (82% of total awards), with 83 sub-award actions against major defense primes. Named primes include Lockheed Martin Corporation (software development and advanced technology program support across multiple task orders), Torch Technologies Inc. (repeated task orders for modeling and simulation engineering and analysis supporting Army missile and countermeasure systems), Intrepid LLC (systems engineering and technical assistance to the Integrated Fires Mission Command project office, recurring across multiple task orders and fiscal years), Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation (Ground-based Weapon System software development), Science Applications International Corporation (system software lifecycle engineering and DevSecOps modernization), and KBR Wyle Services, LLC (technical analysis for Army missile-defense programs). Across SCI-reportable service contracts, Penta Research delivered 12.7 FTEs in FY2022 and 0.1 FTEs in FY2024 as a named subcontractor on work above the $150,000 reporting threshold; this represents a partial view of federal service activity and excludes classified, micro-purchase, and goods-based work.

Activity accelerated from two awards in 2022 to 37 in 2024, then moderated to 22 in 2025 and one in 2026 (as of mid-January). Two awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, carrying combined potential value of $3.6 million, exposing a modest recompete cliff relative to the vendor's $4.01 billion combined potential value across all awards. The concentration reflects the ceiling value of the Seaport-NXG IDIQ; obligated dollars across all awards total $77.4 million (2% of potential value), indicating that most of the $4 billion sits as unexercised ordering authority rather than executed work. Penta Research's technical scope clusters around research and development in physical and engineering sciences (47 awards), custom programming (14 awards), and systems engineering (12 awards), with defense R&D and experimental-development work dominating the program-structure profile. The vendor's recent prime-contract velocity and vehicle positioning on SHIELD, Seaport-NXG, and OASIS+SB position it to grow task-order capture in missile defense and advanced warfare systems development.

Penta Research Inc provides analysis, research and development services to the government and defense contractors on missile related weapon systems.