Texas A&M Univ Cyclotron Ins

Texas A&M University, operating as a division of The Texas A&M University System and doing business as Texas A&M Univ Cyclotron Ins, delivers specialized cyclotron beam facilities, radiation testing, and advanced nuclear research services to federal defense and civilian space agencies as a prime contractor. The institution is a state-controlled public research university and 1862 land-grant institution that competes full-and-open on all federal contract awards with no set-aside designation, reflecting the highly specialized and unique nature of its scientific infrastructure and expertise.

The Cyclotron Institute provides cyclotron beam time allocation, heavy ion beam testing for spacecraft focal plane arrays, radiation hardening research of microelectronics, dosimetry research data collection, and radiation testing of electronic hardware and photonic components in support of defense, space exploration, and fundamental physics research. Representative prime work includes a $47,600 firm fixed-price BPA call from the Air Force Research Laboratory for cyclotron beam time and facilities services (awarded April 9, 2026, under a $700,000 AFRL BPA through September 30, 2029); a $24,000 firm fixed-price delivery order from Naval Strategic Systems Programs for cyclotron beam facilities service (awarded March 27, 2026); a $2.5 million single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract from Naval Sea Systems Command for cyclotron beam facilities services ranging from 8 to 8,178 hours annually (awarded September 30, 2025, through September 29, 2030); and a $1.5 million BPA with NASA's Goddard Space Center for radiation testing of microelectronic and photonic elements supporting spacecraft component evaluation. The institute also subcontracts to prime defense and aerospace firms — Teledyne Scientific & Imaging on space power conversion electronics testing, Lockheed Martin on radiation test facility development, and The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory on guidance production technical support.

Customer concentration skews heavily toward defense and space agencies. The top five customers by award count and potential value together account for 82% of combined potential value. The Office of the Secretary of Defense leads in potential value with 14 awards worth $6.1 million combined; NASA's Goddard Space Center follows with 36 awards valued at $5.1 million; the Air Force Research Laboratory accounts for 26 awards worth $3.8 million; Naval Sea Systems Command holds 12 awards worth $3.7 million; and Naval Strategic Systems Programs maintains 37 awards valued at $2.2 million. This portfolio reflects a tight customer concentration in Department of Defense test and evaluation facilities and NASA space exploration support. Recent activity has remained steady at 10 to 12 awards per year from 2022 through 2025, with 260 prime awards in the source data spanning more than three decades.

The institute operates under five principal parent vehicles. The Indefinite Delivery Contract F0160079D0330 carries 21 task orders worth $1.8 million combined potential value. The Air Force Research Laboratory BPA FA945319A0001 (Defense Threat Reduction Agency procuring) supports 16 task orders valued at $1.2 million. Naval-issued IDCs N0016420DGM72 and N0016416DGM44 each support 20 and 18 task orders respectively, valued at $629 thousand and $819 thousand combined. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency BPA HDTRA110A0001 places 20 task orders worth $375 thousand. Across all parent vehicles, firm fixed-price task orders for cyclotron beam time and radiation testing dominate the scope — services are routine, specialized, and priced predictably per hour of facility use or per test run.

The Cyclotron Institute traces to The Texas A&M University System as its parent entity. At the institutional level, the System carries a broad federal portfolio of research grants and contracts across engineering, national security, and scientific research. The Cyclotron Institute itself is operationally specialized, with 76 awards categorized under Testing Laboratories and Services (NAICS) and 64 under Research and Development in Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences, reflecting its narrow mission as a shared federal testing facility. Award potential value across all 260 prime awards totals $25.4 million, with $13.5 million obligated, indicating steady incremental ordering against standing indefinite delivery and BPA vehicles rather than new full-and-open competitions. The institute's role as a one-of-a-kind federal scientific asset — the only university cyclotron operating at this scale for federal radiation testing — insulates it from set-aside competition and positions it as a non-competitive resource across multiple defense and civilian agencies.