SHIELD: The $151B MDA IDIQ, and What Wins Task Orders
Solicitation HQ085925RE001, the rules MDA actually locked in, and where the 1,563-question Q&A record changes how you bid.
SHIELD (Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense) is the Missile Defense Agency's multiple-award indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity vehicle, solicitation HQ085925RE001. It supports an advanced, multi-domain defense system for detecting, tracking, intercepting and neutralizing ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missile and other advanced aerial threats to the homeland, deployed forces and allies, across land, sea, air, space and cyberspace. The ceiling is $151 billion over a ten-year ordering period, split into a three-year base and three optional periods. Section C establishes 19 work areas ranging from science and technology through production, sustainment and cybersecurity. The scope is intentionally broad, and MDA declined throughout the Q&A to define the work areas further. Any DoD component may place orders.
What happened, and when
Rows in purple are still governing how orders come out. For anything more recent, check official sources.
At a glance: draft to final
The inclusive award model survived. Almost everything about how you had to package the proposal did not.
What actually decides your next SHIELD order
MDA deferred almost every substantive requirement to the order level. These are the four things the Q&A record says will shape each competition.
The practical consequence: with 2,400-plus holders and no scope restrictions, differentiation happens entirely inside each order response, on a clock set by the ordering contracting officer.
Where to find official information
Order solicitations and amendments move quickly. Go to primary sources rather than secondhand summaries.
How VisibleThread helps on a vehicle this crowded
SHIELD compressed the whole burden of reading into two places: a 128-page solicitation plus a 196-page Q&A file that silently amends it, and then a stream of order solicitations with their own Sections L and M. Miss one answer buried on page 140 and you submit against instructions MDA already changed.
VisibleThread reads and shreds documents like these into structured compliance matrices in minutes rather than days, and compares draft against final so material changes surface instead of hiding. It is deterministic, explainable AI, so in an acceptable-or-unacceptable environment you are not trusting a black box for what the government actually asked for.
That is the specific problem SHIELD creates. The broader one VisibleThread solves is the same whichever vehicle you are chasing: compliance tracking, content reuse across bids, readability and quality review, and a proposal workflow that carries you from RFP release to submission.
Who uses VisibleThread for this kind of work
Customer names and logos are withheld by design on this page. Ask your VisibleThread contact for referenceable case studies in your specific vertical.
See it in action: the SHIELD Q&A, shredded
To show what VisibleThread does with a document like this, we ran MDA's complete SHIELD question and answer file, HQ085925RE001 dated 10-07-2025, through VisibleThread. That is 1,563 numbered questions and government responses across 196 pages, and it silently rewrites parts of the solicitation. Start to finish, opening the file to a fully categorized shred, took minutes.
Download this exact SHIELD shred example free.
Fill in the form and we will send you the full breakdown shown below, plus a free trial so we can build the same shred against your actual next target: a SHIELD task order, an on-ramp solicitation, or anything else in your pipeline.
What the shred surfaces: the questions industry asked in volume, which is a direct map of where the solicitation was ambiguous, and which answers changed the rules.
Seven clusters account for hundreds of the 1,563 entries, and each one resolved into a rule change: single NAICS code, CUI permitted in PIEE, a corrected Attachment L-02, revised ordering procedures, and a recency date pinned to September 10, 2025. That is what a reviewer would otherwise have had to catch by eye across 196 pages. If VisibleThread can do that with the SHIELD Q&A, it can do it with your next order solicitation.
FAQ
What is the SHIELD IDIQ?
SHIELD (Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense) is a multiple-award IDIQ issued by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency under solicitation HQ085925RE001. It carries a $151 billion ceiling over a ten-year ordering period and covers 19 work areas spanning air, missile, space, land, sea, cyber and hybrid threat domains.
When were SHIELD proposals due?
The final RFP was released September 10, 2025. Questions were due September 15, 2025. Proposals were originally due October 10, 2025 and were extended to October 16, 2025 at 4:00 p.m. CDT following Amendment 0002. Submission was via the PIEE Solicitation Module only.
How many companies hold a SHIELD IDIQ?
MDA stated its intent to award to every qualifying offeror with no ceiling on the number of awardees and no set-aside pools at the IDIQ level. The resulting pool is more than 2,400 holders, which means task order competitions, not the IDIQ award itself, are where SHIELD is won or lost.
What did the IDIQ evaluation actually assess?
Corporate Experience was the only technical factor, rated acceptable or unacceptable with no qualitative assessment and no AI used in the evaluation. Offerors had to show recent and relevant experience in at least two but no more than three Section C work areas, submitted on Attachment L-02. Price was not an evaluation factor at the IDIQ level, and no technical approach was requested.
How was recency defined?
Any part of performance occurring within five years of the solicitation release date, which MDA confirmed as September 10, 2025. There was no minimum duration of performance and no minimum contract dollar value. Commercial, state, local and non-federal experience was acceptable, as was SBIR, STTR and OTA work.
Are SHIELD awardees limited to the work areas they proposed?
No. MDA answered this dozens of times in the Q&A: once awarded there are no work area restrictions. Awardees may propose on orders covering any listed work area regardless of the two or three work areas they used to demonstrate corporate experience.
Can a SHIELD holder be off-ramped?
Yes. Under H-03, MDA may off-ramp a holder that is non-responsive to IDIQ-level modifications, or where 12 consecutive months elapse without submitting a proposal or quote that is compliant with order solicitation instructions. MDA said it will contact holders before any off-ramp action, that awardees are not required to propose on every solicited order, and that holding a task order does not automatically reset the 12-month clock.
Is CMMC certification required under SHIELD?
Not at the IDIQ award stage. Specific CMMC level requirements are determined at the order level and compliance is verified prior to performance of classified or sensitive orders. Likewise EVMS thresholds, CAS coverage, DCMA-approved accounting systems and data rights assertions all attach at the order level, not the IDIQ.
Did an offeror need a facility clearance?
To be eligible for award an offeror needed either an active FCL or to have successfully cleared the Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence review. An active FCL was not required for IDIQ award, but a holder without one may be precluded from orders requiring classified access until it has one. All offerors had to submit Attachment L-01, SF 328, regardless.
Will there be another SHIELD on-ramp?
MDA may reopen the competition at its discretion under H-02. Any on-ramp is announced publicly on SAM.gov and evaluated against the same factors as the original solicitation, and existing holders do not re-compete. No timeframe for the first on-ramp has been published. Joint ventures that include an existing holder may compete in an on-ramp provided the JV has its own UEI.
Last updated: September 14, 2026. This page will be revised as MDA issues further SHIELD amendments, ordering guidance and on-ramp notices.