Government Test Ranges for Startups: The Hidden Currency of SBIR

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By Nalin Vahil | Last updated: May 29, 2026 | Cada Grant Strategy

Most founders read SBIR as a check. For a real slice of companies, the check is the least valuable thing in the program. The prize is the government test ranges for startups, national labs, and operators that no amount of private capital can buy.

Government test ranges for startups are the assets that private capital cannot buy: instrumented test ranges, anechoic chambers, undersea ranges, credentialed military operators, regulated clinical study sites, and the rooms where program offices decide what to adopt. An SBIR or STTR award is often the cleanest legal doorway into those assets. The money is the cover charge. The access is the point.

This guide names the assets, the agencies that control them, and the exact contracting route into each one. The full catalog is below.

What counts as non-monetary SBIR value?

Non-monetary SBIR value is everything an award unlocks besides cash: time on a government test range, hands-on evaluation by the operators who would actually use your system, access to a national-lab instrument that costs more than your seed round, and structured face time with the customer who controls a budget line. For some companies these are worth more than the award itself.

Here is the uncomfortable version of that idea.

Why a funded startup takes an SBIR it doesn't need the cash for

Picture a sensor company that has already raised a large Series C. On paper it needs nothing from a $75,000 to $300,000 award. Its founders pursue a defense SBIR anyway.

Why? Because the company cannot replicate a military anechoic chamber, cannot stage a live exercise with the operators who would carry its hardware, and cannot manufacture the credibility of "tested at a government range" out of venture dollars. The award is the access key. The cash is rounding error.

That pattern repeats across defense, space, energy, and biotech. The three things below are genuinely unbuyable on the private market, no matter how much you have raised:

• Instrumented ranges and chambers. A startup can rent a parking lot. It cannot rent a calibrated electronic-warfare environment, an undersea acoustic range, or a hypersonic wind tunnel.
• Credentialed operators and end users. You cannot hire the specific operators who will field your system. You can only get evaluated by them inside a government event or contract.
• Regulated study sites and development resources. A biotech cannot conjure a clinical network or late-stage preclinical development support. Those live inside federal infrastructure.

If your technology only becomes real once it has touched one of those, the grant is not funding. It is a pass through the gate.

That reframe changes which program you should chase, and it is the entire reason this catalog exists.

How do startups get access to government test facilities?

Startups get access to government test facilities through five contracting mechanisms: a customer-discovery engagement that produces a Memorandum of Understanding, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), a user-facility agreement at a national lab, a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA, or a voucher program that pays the lab on your behalf. The vehicle determines who pays and what data rights you keep.

You almost never walk onto a range cold. You get there through one of these five doors.

Mechanism	Who runs it	What it unlocks	Who pays
Customer-discovery engagement -> MoU / Customer Memorandum	DoD components (AFWERX, Army, Navy, SOCOM)	End-user access, exercises, a path to Phase II and adoption	SBIR award funds the engagement
CRADA (Cooperative R&D Agreement)	Federal labs across DoD, DOE, NASA, NIH	Joint R&D, lab personnel, equipment, technical know-how	Shared; you often bring your own costs
User-facility agreement	DOE designated user facilities	Time on world-class instruments (light sources, supercomputers, nanoscience centers)	Free if you publish results; reimbursable if you keep them proprietary
Reimbursable Space Act Agreement	NASA centers	Wind tunnels, rocket-engine test stands, unique NASA facilities	You reimburse NASA's cost
Voucher program	DOE (Small Business Voucher, GAIN)	National-lab capabilities with simplified contracting	DOE pays the lab, $50,000 to $300,000 typical

Two rules to memorize before you read the catalog.

First: "reimbursable" means you still pay. NASA and many DoD ranges recover their cost. The value is access, not free access.

Second: data rights are set by the vehicle, not by goodwill. A user-facility agreement that publishes your results is cheap. Keeping the data proprietary costs more and requires the right agreement. Read this before you run a single test.

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The catalog: government test ranges, operators, and facilities you can access

This is the database. It is organized by domain. Every entry follows the same five-line format: what you access, who it is for, how you get in, the cost reality, and the catch.

Entries marked (preview) are visible on the public page. The remaining entries unlock with the full download.

DoD test ranges and instrumented facilities (the MRTFB)

The Department of Defense maintains a designated core of test infrastructure called the Major Range and Test Facility Base (MRTFB), overseen by the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC). These are national assets, kept available to support acquisition. A startup reaches them through a DoD customer, a CRADA, or a Phase II/III contract that includes test events.

Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), Patuxent River, MD (preview)

• What you access: The Air Combat Environment Test and Evaluation Facility (ACETEF), home to one of the largest anechoic chambers in the world, plus electronic-warfare integration labs and threat-simulation environments. Pax River is the largest military test facility in the United States, spanning more than 14,500 acres.
• Who it is for: Sensors, RF, electronic warfare, avionics, and autonomy companies that need a calibrated electromagnetic environment.
• How you get in: A Navy customer relationship, a CRADA, or a Phase II contract scoping chamber time.
• Cost reality: Reimbursable. You pay for chamber hours.
• The catch: Queues are long and clearance posture matters. EW testing often touches classified threat data.

Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), Newport, RI and Keyport, WA

• What you access: Instrumented undersea and acoustic test ranges for sonar, autonomous underwater vehicles, and undersea communications.
• Who it is for: Maritime autonomy, undersea sensing, and naval communications startups.
• How you get in: Navy SBIR/STTR with test events, or a CRADA with the relevant division.
• Cost reality: Reimbursable.
• The catch: Scheduling is gated by Navy operational priorities, not yours.

White Sands Missile Range, NM / Yuma Proving Ground, AZ / Aberdeen Test Center, MD

• What you access: Open-air ranges for munitions, ground systems, missile defense, and environmental extremes. Yuma covers desert and aviation testing; Aberdeen covers ground-vehicle and automotive testing; White Sands covers missile and directed-energy work.
• Who it is for: Ground systems, munitions, directed energy, and ruggedization companies.
• How you get in: Army customer + contract that books range time.
• Cost reality: Reimbursable.
• The catch: These are heavily scheduled national ranges. Lead times run months.

Air Force test centers: 412th Test Wing (Edwards AFB, CA), 96th Test Wing (Eglin AFB, FL), Arnold Engineering Development Complex (Arnold AFB, TN)

• What you access: Flight test, weapons integration and live-fire (Eglin), and ground-test wind tunnels and propulsion cells (Arnold).
• Who it is for: Aerospace, propulsion, hypersonics, and weapons companies.
• How you get in: Air Force program office sponsorship, typically downstream of an AFWERX engagement.
• Cost reality: Reimbursable.
• The catch: You need a sponsoring program office before a wing will schedule you.

Special-operations and rapid-engagement events

This is the fastest, lowest-friction door in the entire catalog. You do not need a contract to get in front of the customer. You need a good 10 minutes.

SOFWERX Tech Tuesday (preview)

• What you access: A short virtual slot to present your technology directly to USSOCOM stakeholders and other participating agencies. Recent cohorts ran on Tuesday afternoons (1500 to 1700 ET) with roughly a 10-minute pitch plus Q&A.
• Who it is for: Any innovator with a dual-use or SOF-relevant capability. Industry, academia, and individual inventors are all eligible.
• How you get in: Open submission through the SOFWERX events portal. No award required.
• Cost reality: No direct cost.
• The catch: A slot is exposure, not a sale. Its only function is to let a government stakeholder decide whether to follow up offline. Treat it as the start of customer discovery, not the end.

USSOCOM technical experimentation and assessment events

• What you access: Hands-on assessment of your hardware by SOF operators in a structured experimentation event.
• Who it is for: Companies with a working prototype that benefits from operator feedback.
• How you get in: Apply to specific posted experimentation events through SOFWERX.
• Cost reality: No direct cost to participate; you fund your own travel and hardware.
• The catch: Events are topic-specific and competitive. Read the call carefully before applying.

AFWERX / AFVentures end-user engagement

• What you access: Structured introductions to Air Force and Space Force end users, program offices, and transition partners through the AFVentures ecosystem.
• Who it is for: AFWERX Open Topic SBIR applicants and awardees.
• How you get in: An AFWERX Open Topic Phase I, which is built around customer discovery. Recent Open Topic Phase I cycles funded roughly $75,000 (SBIR) over about three months to identify an Air Force end user and secure a memorandum for Phase II. Amounts and durations change cycle to cycle, so verify the current solicitation.
• Cost reality: The award funds the engagement.
• The catch: The deliverable is a signed customer memorandum, not a demo. If you cannot find a real end user, the access does not convert.

DOE national labs

The Department of Energy runs 17 national laboratories with instruments that are effectively impossible to buy: synchrotron light sources, nanoscience centers, supercomputers, and materials characterization tools. There are four distinct doors.

DOE designated user facilities (preview)

• What you access: Time on world-class scientific instruments across the lab complex.
• Who it is for: Energy, materials, advanced-manufacturing, and deep-tech companies that need characterization or computation beyond their own capability.
• How you get in: A user-facility agreement submitted to the specific lab.
• Cost reality: Free if you publish your results in the open literature; reimbursable if you keep the data proprietary.
• The catch: The free path means your competitors can read your results. Choose the agreement that matches your IP strategy.

Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP)

• What you access: A two-year funded fellowship embedded inside a national lab, with a lab-scientist mentor, equipment access, and collaborative R&D funding. Four nodes: Cyclotron Road (Lawrence Berkeley), Chain Reaction Innovations (Argonne), Innovation Crossroads (Oak Ridge), and West Gate (NREL, Golden, CO).
• Who it is for: Early-stage energy and manufacturing hardware founders.
• How you get in: National application call, typically annual.
• Cost reality: Fellowship-funded, including a living stipend.
• The catch: It is a fellowship with a relocation expectation, not a remote grant. You move to the lab.

DOE Small Business Voucher (SBV)

• What you access: National-lab capabilities with simplified contracting, paid for by DOE.
• Who it is for: US small clean-energy businesses.
• How you get in: Competitive application; DOE issues the voucher and pays the lab directly.
• Cost reality: Voucher-funded, historically $50,000 to $300,000 per award.
• The catch: Program windows and exact terms shift between cycles. Confirm the current round is open before you build a plan around it.

Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN)

• What you access: Nuclear-specific lab capabilities and expertise via vouchers.
• Who it is for: Advanced nuclear and related companies.
• How you get in: GAIN voucher application.
• Cost reality: Voucher-funded.
• The catch: Narrow sector fit. Only relevant if you are in the nuclear space.

NASA facilities

NASA owns test infrastructure that no private company has matched: large wind tunnels and rocket-engine test stands among them.

Reimbursable Space Act Agreements (RSAA)

• What you access: NASA test facilities, personnel expertise, and equipment. At Stennis Space Center, companies have used exclusive-use rocket-engine test stands. Other centers offer wind tunnels and specialized labs.
• Who it is for: Space, propulsion, aerospace, and advanced-materials companies.
• How you get in: Negotiate a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with the relevant NASA center.
• Cost reality: Reimbursable. You pay NASA's cost to use the facility.
• The catch: Reimbursable does not mean cheap. These agreements suit companies with real capital that need a facility, not free testing.

Biomedical and NIH development resources

For health and biotech founders, the unbuyable assets are development expertise and clinical infrastructure, not chambers and ranges.

NCATS Bridging Interventional Development Gaps (BrIDGs)

• What you access: Late-stage preclinical development support, with selected teams collaborating with NIH NCATS experts to move a therapeutic toward an IND and clinical testing.
• Who it is for: SBIR-eligible therapeutics companies stuck in the preclinical valley.
• How you get in: Apply to the BrIDGs program.
• Cost reality: No direct cost for the development services provided; competitive selection.
• The catch: It is selective and therapeutic-focused. Not a fit for devices or diagnostics.

Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) hubs

• What you access: A national network of roughly 60 hubs that provide clinical and translational research infrastructure.
• Who it is for: Health companies that need clinical-development capability.
• How you get in: Partner with a CTSA hub institution.
• Cost reality: Varies by hub and partnership.
• The catch: Access runs through an academic partner, so you inherit their timelines and processes.

TABA Needs Assessment

• What you access: A technical and business assessment for Phase I SBIR/STTR awardees, delivered as a report.
• Who it is for: NIH SBIR/STTR Phase I awardees.
• How you get in: Request it as a Phase I awardee.
• Cost reality: Funded through the technical-assistance allowance.
• The catch: It is a report and advisory support, not lab time.

How to design your grant pursuit around government test ranges, not cash

Once you see government test ranges for startups as the real prize, the strategy inverts. You do not pick the program with the biggest check. You pick the program that controls the asset your technology needs to touch.

Three moves follow from that.

Match the program to the asset. If your hardware lives or dies on an anechoic-chamber result, a Navy or Air Force pathway that books that chamber beats a larger award that does not. Work backward from the asset.

Use the engagement event before the award. SOFWERX Tech Tuesday and AFWERX customer-discovery events cost nothing and require no contract. Run those first to confirm a real end user exists, then pursue the award that funds the relationship.

Sequence for adoption, not just for testing. The strongest pattern is engagement event, then award, then range or facility time, then a signed customer memorandum that names a budget owner. Each step is evidence for the next. A test result with no customer behind it is a science-fair ribbon.

The companies that win here are not the ones with the most cash. They are the ones who treated the award as a key and knew exactly which door it opened.

The honest caveats: what access does not get you

This is where most "free government resources" content goes quiet. We will not.

Clearances and compliance gate the best assets. Many DoD ranges and EW environments require facility clearance, and ITAR and CMMC posture can block you before you start. If you are not export-compliant, parts of this catalog are closed until you are.

Queues are real and long. National ranges are scheduled around DoD priorities. Months of lead time is normal. Plan your runway around the wait, not the test date you hope for.

Reimbursable means you pay. NASA RSAAs and most DoD range time recover cost. The value is access to something unbuyable, not a discount.

A slot is not a sale. A Tech Tuesday pitch or an assessment event is the beginning of customer discovery. It opens a conversation. It does not close a transition.

Data rights vary by vehicle. A publish-your-results user agreement is cheap and public. Proprietary data costs more and needs the right agreement. Decide your IP posture before you sign.

Programs change cycle to cycle. Award amounts, voucher windows, and even program names shift. Treat every number in this catalog as a starting point and verify the current solicitation before you commit.

Frequently asked questions

What are government test ranges for startups?

Government test ranges for startups are federally owned test facilities, instruments, and operator-evaluation events that startups can access through SBIR awards, CRADAs, user agreements, or reimbursable agreements. They include DoD instrumented ranges, DOE national-lab user facilities, NASA test stands, and NIH clinical and development resources that private capital cannot replicate.

Can a startup use a national lab without an SBIR award?

Yes. DOE designated user facilities accept user-facility agreements independent of any award, the Small Business Voucher and GAIN programs pay the lab directly, and a CRADA can be negotiated without an SBIR. The award is one door into the labs, not the only one.

How does SOFWERX Tech Tuesday work?

SOFWERX Tech Tuesday gives selected innovators a short virtual slot, recently around a 10-minute pitch plus Q&A on Tuesday afternoons, to present a capability directly to USSOCOM and other government stakeholders. Submission is open through the SOFWERX events portal and requires no contract or award. Its purpose is to let stakeholders decide whether to follow up offline.

What is a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement?

A Reimbursable Space Act Agreement lets a private company use NASA facilities, personnel, or equipment while reimbursing NASA's cost. Companies have used it to access rocket-engine test stands and wind tunnels that exist nowhere else.

Is test and evaluation access free?

Sometimes. DOE user facilities are free if you publish your results, and engagement events like Tech Tuesday cost nothing. But most ranges and NASA facilities are reimbursable, meaning you cover the cost. The value is access to unbuyable infrastructure, not free testing.

Do I need a security clearance to access DoD test facilities?

Often, yes, for the most sensitive ranges and environments, plus facility clearance and ITAR or CMMC compliance. Open engagement events like Tech Tuesday do not require a clearance, but classified threat environments and many range activities do.

How we verified this catalog

Every entry traces to an authoritative public source: agency .gov and .mil pages, official program pages, and DoD test-infrastructure documentation, all checked on May 29, 2026. Specific sources include NAVAIR (Patuxent River), the DoD Test Resource Management Center (MRTFB composition), SOFWERX (Tech Tuesday), the Department of Energy (Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program, Small Business Voucher, lab partnering guides), NASA (Reimbursable Space Act Agreement guidance), and NIH NCATS (BrIDGs and CTSA).

Program structures, award amounts, and voucher windows change between cycles. Treat every figure here as a verified starting point, not a guarantee, and confirm the current solicitation before you commit.

Get the full catalog

The complete database lists every asset above plus the rest of the catalog, with the access mechanism, eligibility, cost reality, and contact channel for each. Download it in exchange for your email and we will keep it current as programs change.

If you already know your technology needs a specific asset, the harder question is which grant pursuit gets you there fastest. That is the work we do.

Cada has written 100-plus grant proposals across 30-plus agencies. We help founders design a grant pursuit around the asset they actually need, not just the largest available check. If you want a straight answer on which program opens the door to your range, chamber, or study site, book a 15-minute fit check. No pitch, no obligation.