Melissa A. Starry

Melissa A. Starry serves as a key procurement lead within the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Directorate, managing complex acquisitions for advanced aerospace propulsion systems, hypersonic technologies, and high-performance functional materials. Her role centers on executing full lifecycle contract actions that support the Department of Defense’s strategic imperative to maintain air and space dominance through next-generation propulsion innovation. She routinely handles competitive and sole-source procurements for research and development contracts, prototype initiatives, and engineering services aligned with mission-critical propulsion and materials science objectives, ensuring technical rigor and timely delivery of capabilities to warfighters. Starry maintains consistent working relationships with industry leaders including UES INC, General Electric Company, DCS Corporation, Spirit AeroSystems Inc, and Advanced Thermoplastic Composites LLC. These partnerships reflect a preference for established defense aerospace contractors with proven expertise in propulsion system integration, adaptive flight control, and advanced composite manufacturing. Her contracting patterns indicate a reliance on firms with deep technical capabilities in high-temperature materials, combustion dynamics, and hypersonic vehicle systems, often involving cost-reimbursement and time-and-materials contract types to accommodate high-risk, high-reward R&D efforts. There is no evidence of set-aside preferences; all procurements are conducted as full and open competitions without socioeconomic set-asides. This reflects a mission-driven focus on technical superiority and schedule-critical outcomes, prioritizing capability over socioeconomic criteria in a domain where specialized expertise is scarce and development timelines are compressed. Her procurement portfolio is concentrated in advanced aerospace propulsion, hypersonics, and high-temperature materials engineering, with a technical emphasis on turbine systems, scramjet integration, ceramic matrix composites, and thermal protection systems. She consistently sources solutions requiring specialized engineering talent and classified manufacturing capabilities, reinforcing the agency’s role as a national leader in propulsion innovation.