By SHELBY G. SPIRES
Times Aerospace Writer shelby.spires@htimes.com

A Huntsville-based research and engineering firm has been awarded a decade-long, $449 million space and missile defense contract to develop smaller satellites, communication technologies and space-fighting tactics for the U.S. Army Space & Missile Defense Command.

Quantum Research International Inc. has been awarded the Concepts and Operations for Space and Missile Defense Integration Capabilities, also known as COSMIC, contract to provide support to the SMDC Future Warfare Center at the Space and Missile Defense Battle Lab in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Management of the program and about half the work will be performed in Huntsville, with the rest being done in Colorado, said Quantum CEO Frank Pitts, who founded the company in 1987.

"This is new work for us. It's space, satellite work and missile defense work," Pitts said in a telephone interview Monday. "We will be looking at all types of space tactics and space-based warfare to create new concepts. It incorporates both space and missile defense."

Pitts said the company was nailing down details on how many jobs would be created in Huntsville because of the contract. "I know it will create jobs because it is new work, but those details have not been outlined yet," he said.

Quantum has about 350 employees around the nation, with about 100 people in Huntsville, said Denise Williams, Quantum spokeswoman.

Quantum will assist the lab in the identification, initiation and development of key space technologies to support soldiers on future battlefields. These technologies will be used to provide enhanced communication, intelligence and weapons, and include Near Space High Altitude Long Endurance platforms that could be placed on balloons or suborbital satellites along with mobile networking technologies, microsatellites, nanotechnologies and laser and robotic technologies.