Following the announcement last week that U.S. Space Command headquarters will move from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Ala., state and local economic development officials said they’re confident the relocation won’t soften Colorado’s or El Paso County’s aerospace and defense industries.

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One company announced an expansion into Colorado Springs two days after the Space Command news. Mobius, a woman-owned small business specializing in space and missile defense, said it will open its newest location in town, bringing with it 75 net new jobs with an average annual wage of $137,000. That’s more than double the average for El Paso County.

“We remain fully confident in the long-term strength of Colorado Springs as a strategic hub,” Mobius President Frank Privitera said.

Several other companies, including some who since late 2022 have announced they are expanding or coming to Colorado Springs, said even with Space Command’s future relocation they remain committed to their local operations. The expansions collectively promised thousands of new jobs and more than $2 billion in local investments. 

Here are updates from six other aerospace and defense companies doing business in Colorado Springs:

KBR

Houston-headquartered KBR, which has 650 employees in Colorado Springs, is still assessing the impacts of Space Command’s move, said its Vice President of Space Operations Brian Young.

“Not all our Colorado Springs work is related to Space Command, so the majority of our work will not be affected,” he said in a written statement Friday.

Colorado “continues to be a strategic growth hub for KBR,” which has six offices and 320,000 square feet of office space here, Young added.

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Colorado Springs is a key location for the company in part because of its proximity to critical military and defense operations. Some of its key customers are the Air Force and Space Force, the military branch with a large presence at Peterson and Schriever Space Force bases that is separate from Space Command. Other key customers include Joint Commercial Operations, Space Systems Center and others; several KBR employees work directly on military bases and with government customers on the company’s contracts, Young said.

KBR is expanding with more than 40 open positions in Colorado Springs, “a testament to our deep investment with strong momentum and a clear commitment to attracting top-tier talent to support our expanding operations.”

The company also has an office in Huntsville with around 800 employees supporting Army work, Young said. Huntsville, like Colorado Springs and Dayton, Ohio, is “a city of growth” for KBR, Young said. The company is also still assessing what the Space Command headquarters change means for its work in Huntsville.

Aerospace Corp.

Since unveiling its $100 million, 90,000-square-foot Space Warfighting Center at Colorado Springs Airport’s Peak Innovation Park in September 2022, Virginia-based Aerospace Corp. has doubled its headcount in Colorado Springs, the company said in a Monday statement.

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Aerospace Corp. has other Colorado locations, at Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora and at Peterson and Schriever Space Force bases in El Paso County, according to its website. It has one office in Huntsville.

The company did not share how many people it employs locally, but said its growth in Colorado Springs “(reinforces) our commitment to meeting the evolving demands of national space priorities.”

Its Colorado employees “continue to provide critical support in areas like wargaming, advanced flight dynamics, space control, space domain awareness, AI and more for both the U.S. Space Force and U.S. Space Command,” Aerospace Corp. said.

Though Space Command headquarters will move to Alabama, Aerospace Corp. “remain(s) committed to our long-standing operations in Colorado Springs, which continues to be a hub for space and technical innovation,” the company said.

Aerospace Corp. plans to expand its presence in Huntsville “to support our customers and the nation’s top defense priorities.”

Auria

Since announcing plans in August 2023 to create 620 jobs over eight years, Colorado Springs-based defense company Auria has hired between 20 and 30 people this year, its President Tom Dickson said by phone last week.

Most of the company’s work is with operational units rather than Space Command headquarters, building software and command and control systems; Space Command’s move won’t significantly impact Auria’s operations, Dickson said.

Auria has had a presence in Huntsville for about 15 years. Dickson expects the company’s work there will “more than likely be more” focused on the Golden Dome initiative, a new missile defense system the Trump administration has already earmarked $21.6 billion to fund, and “maybe” the Space Development Agency.

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“We’re expecting we’ll have some growth there (in Huntsville) related to those areas. We still think most of our Space Force work … will be in Colorado Springs,” Dickson said.

Twenty open job postings in Colorado Springs were listed on Auria’s website Monday, advertising for positions including software developers and engineers, system analysts and others.

Auria has won several Space Force contracts over the past two years, including an $8.1 million contract with U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command in May. Auria is one of two companies developing a cloud-based Joint Antenna Marketplace prototype that will connect satellite operations centers to commercial and government-owned antennas to support U.S. and allied fighting forces and ensure national security in, from and to space, said a May 12 news release from Space Systems Command.

Auria has added staff to other programs and built out an additional 7,000 square feet of office space at its headquarters near Briargate, Dickson said. It is also building out a 7,000-square-foot Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) — a requirement for certain classified projects.

“We see a lot of bright things around the corner,” Dickson said.

Infinity Systems Engineering

Infinity Systems Engineering is an engineering firm that works closely with the Department of Defense and other large contractors. In 2023, the company announced it would add nearly 500 jobs over eight years.

As part of the announcement two years ago, Springs-based Infinity Systems Engineering won $4.26 million in state tax credits, contingent upon job creation.

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The company did not comment on its current hiring picture.

President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Jaworowski said last week the Space Command headquarters move will likely not impact Infinity’s work in Colorado Springs directly.

“There will surely be a secondary effect felt broadly locally depending on how many government and contractor personnel also make the move to Huntsville,” he said. “The move likely creates an opportunity for Infinity and our local defense peers to add highly qualified talent to our teams from the pool of people who do not make the move … .”

Nooks

Nooks, a company that provides classified spaces as a service, is planning to expand to Huntsville, along with roughly 50 other defense and intelligence hubs.

The company expanded in Colorado Springs in June, opening a 60,000-square-foot facility near the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. This is Nooks’ third location, in addition to Washington, D.C., and El Segundo, Calif. The expansion is expected to add 35 jobs in Colorado Springs.

The company is on its way to hire 30 people in 2025, a spokesperson said.

“Our commitment to (Colorado Springs) is unwavering and we are already exploring further local expansion to support the significant and ongoing demand from the local defense community,” a Nooks spokesperson said. “Our focus remains on serving the robust concentration of critical national security innovators that will continue to thrive in this region.”

ITS (Infinity Technology Services)

ITS has hired 27 employees since announcing on July 31 it would create 500 jobs and invest more than $7 million into the Colorado Springs community over eight years.

Aerospace and defense firm expanding operations in Colorado Springs, to add 500 jobs

The company said in a written statement Monday only 10 of those jobs, however, will count toward its local expansion plans because of “mission needs of the customer elsewhere.”

But ITS is “still tracking as planned and no doubt growing at a tremendous rate,” a spokeswoman said. The company had also announced its intention to increase space for its personnel in Colorado Springs and to advance its engineering capabilities, research and development initiatives and other work.

Headquartered in the Springs, ITS provides engineering solutions and services to government and commercial clients. The firm supports more than 35 Department of Defense and federal programs globally.

The decision to expand ITS locally “was multifactorial” and Space Command’s move doesn’t change those plans, the company said in its statement.

“The various mission, programs, capabilities, talent pool and overall ecosystem that exists here in Colorado Springs makes it a great place to expand and for our employees to reside. We have no doubt that additional opportunities and capabilities are coming to Colorado Springs to leverage the great foundation that we have built here as a collective military and defense industrial base community,” ITS wrote.

The company added: “Our expansion here is on track and our commitment to the community is stronger than ever. We are thrilled to continue our expansion here in our own backyard and to drive capabilities and opportunities forward in the engineering and technology spaces we support.”

The Gazette’s Mary Shinn contributed to this report.