Sparc Research LLC

Sparc Research LLC, a for-profit advanced propulsion and engineering research company headquartered in Vint Hill Farms, Virginia, delivers rocket propulsion design, defense systems research and development, and specialized hardware fabrication to the Department of Defense and federal agencies primarily as a prime contractor (54% of awards) competing full and open with no set-aside designations. The company operates as a subsidiary of its parent LLC structure and owns Design Integrated Technology, Inc., a manufacturer of goods entity.

Sparc Research's award footprint is dominated by a single transformative vehicle: the $151 billion Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) IDIQ awarded by the Missile Defense Agency on December 29, 2025, with a ten-year ordering period through December 28, 2035. SHIELD, which accounts for 100% of the vendor's combined potential value across all awards, procures multi-domain ballistic missile defense, hypersonic threat mitigation, cruise missile defense, and systems modernization capabilities including disruptive technology development, weapon design, test and evaluation, cybersecurity, and digital engineering. A $500 initial delivery order was issued on the same date. Beneath this structural outlier, Sparc Research maintains meaningful seats on two Air Force vehicles: the $46 billion Eglin Wide Agile Acquisition Contract (EWAAC), where the vendor has received three task orders totaling approximately $2 million for rapid development of novel weapons technologies and load adapter fabrication; and a $28 million single-award Air Force Research Laboratory propulsion design and analysis support contract, where two delivery orders total $11 million for Extended Range Anti-Air Munition (ERAAM) program technology evaluation and propulsion design work. Sparc also holds seats on the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services—Small Business vehicle with eight task orders.

Recent prime contract work outside the SHIELD vehicle includes a $33.9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee definitive contract awarded by the Air Force on September 30, 2025, for advanced rocket propulsion technology development and research through September 2027; a $1.607 million delivery order from the Naval Air Warfare Center under EWAAC on February 7, 2025, for build load adapters through June 2026; and a $349,941 Total Small Business firm fixed-price purchase order from NASA's Shared Services Center on March 24, 2026, for fabrication of upper wing and elevon heater carriage hardware components for test operations at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, with delivery to Edwards Air Force Base due June 24, 2026. A federal grant award from the Washington Headquarters Service (Defense Production Act Title III) for closed bomb and closed combustion chamber improvements carries a cooperative-agreement structure with an ultimate completion date of November 30, 2026.

Customer concentration is heavily skewed toward the Air Force ecosystem. The top five customers by award count account for 79% of awards, led by Air Force Materiel Command and the Air Force Research Laboratory (7 awards, $28 million combined potential value) and the Department of the Air Force broadly (6 awards, $44.9 million), with Naval Air Warfare Center (3 awards, $1.6 million), the Missile Defense Agency (2 awards, $500), and NASA (1 award, $350 thousand) rounding out the set. By potential value, concentration is absolute: the SHIELD IDIQ subsumes 100% of dollars, making all other ranking signals secondary. Activity has grown modestly—two awards in 2022 to seven in 2025—with three awards (combined potential value $41.1 million) reaching ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and facing recompete. The SHIELD vehicle itself is a ten-year platform with no near-term recompete exposure.

Sparc Research operates as a subcontractor to major defense primes on propulsion and tactical systems engineering work. Named sub relationships include Alliant Techsystems Operations LLC (two sub awards on Kestrel solid fuel ramjet testing for research and development in physical and engineering sciences), Sierra Lobo Inc. (multiple sub awards on rocket technology engineering support and strategic tactical propulsion consulting from 2021 through 2024), and Raytheon Company (one sub award for lot 24–26 production issued February 11, 2026). Service Contract Inventory data capture is minimal—a single FY2022 record with 0.6 FTEs as a named subcontractor—indicating that Sparc Research's federal work is heavily weighted toward goods manufacturing, hardware fabrication, and classified or non-reportable R&D rather than labor-hour service contracts above the $150,000 SCI threshold. The company's delivery footprint spans Warrenton, Virginia (primary place of performance), Huntsville, Alabama, and Edwards, California, with work crossing propulsion systems, missile defense, and advanced airbreathing technology specializations across NAICS categories 541712 (Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences) and 3282 (Ammunition and Guided Missile Manufacturing).

Missile and rocket propulsion design, analysis, and R&D.