U.S. Joint Forces Command has awarded two major contracts to area defense contractors.

General Dynamics Corporation has won a contract for assistance in researching, testing and evaluating new capabilities. That contract could be worth $101.9 million if all options are exercised.

The bulk of the work will be done at the Joint Systems Integration Center, which is located in Suffolk.

While the contract is large, it will not create many new job opportunities in the city.

“The work is a continuation of another kind of contract effort,” said Capt. John Polowczyk, business management officer for USJFCOM. “While I am sure there may be some movement of the workforce through natural progression of folks coming and going, it’s not like this is (millions of dollars) of new jobs in Suffolk. The work was already ongoing.”

Polowczyk further explained that the General Dynamic’s work with the Joint Systems Integration Center tests all new capabilities in order to give an unbiased evaluation of their interoperability – or the ability of all of the military branches’ technologies to work together.

General Dynamics is a market leader in business aviation, according to the company’s Web site. It also manufactures land and expeditionary combat vehicles and systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and mission-critical information systems and technologies.

The company has more than 92,000 employees.

Joint Forces Command also has granted General Dynamics, Science Applications International Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with the Joint Concept Development and Experimentation Directorate that is worth up to $284 million.

Again, Polowczyk said, this represents a continuation of ongoing work and will not lead to the creation of more jobs.

Through this contract, General Dynamics, SAIC and Northrop Grumman have earned the exclusive right to further compete for individual task orders.

“They have earned the right to compete on the task order level,” Polowczyk said. “They’re all working on their proposals to get back to us to award the first set of task orders.”

This companies will work with Joint Forces Command to identify warfighter challenges, develop concepts to meet those challenges and then hold experiments to ensure that the concepts that were developed fill the needs for the joint warfighter.

“We look forward to expanding our current support for the USJFCOM J9 as they meet the challenges facing our warfighters,” Bev Seay, SAIC senior vice president and business unit general manager, said in an SAIC press release.

SAIC is a scientific, engineering and technology applications company that works to solve national and global problems in the areas of national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure and health, according to the company’s Web site.

The company has approximately 45,000 employees and works with the U.S. Department of Defense, the intelligence community and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as well as other civil agencies and selected commercial markets.

Northrop Grumman Corp. is a global security company with more than 120,000 employees that provides innovative systems and products in fields such as aerospace, electronics, information systems and shipbuilding, as well as technical services to government.