By John Keller
SAN DIEGO—Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. will provide the U.S. Navy with shipboard computers for the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) program, under terms of contracts awarded in March.
The Northrop Grumman Information Systems segment in Reston, Va., won a $17.4 million contract, while Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors (MS2) Tactical Systems in San Diego won a $15 million contract to provide the CANES common computing environment (CCE). Selection of one prime contractor to complete limited rate initial production (LRIP) is expected next year.
The CANES program consolidates dozens of the Navy’s afloat information systems networks, to reduce infrastructure size and cost, while enhancing reliability and capability. The CANES solution would be deployed across the Navy’s 300-plus ships and shore-based sites.
CANES seeks to build a secure shipboard communications network to enable ships at sea to operate together during joint operations. CANES also will consolidate and reduce the number of shipboard networks by using mature cross-domain technologies and a common computing environment infrastructure, which will include cloud computing.
Essentially, CANES and its common computing environment is the latest Navy program to equip its surface warships with modern computer and networking equipment. Unlike similar programs in the past, the CANES program aims to accommodate computer and networking technology as it evolves, and to mitigate computer obsolescence in the fleet.
Navy leaders expect the CANES program to fall into line with commercial business information technology (IT) trends and move away from the traditional U.S. Defense Department integrated hardware and software stack legacy systems.
 The Navy CANES Common Computing Environment will design a new generation of shipboard computers for surface warships and shore installations. |
The Navy has a long history of unique, closed-system computer architectures going back to the shipboard UYK computers and airborne AYK computers. These systems—although they often were adequate for their assigned tasks—fell hopelessly behind the computing state of the art, and were difficult to upgrade.
The Lockheed Martin team includes General Dynamics, ViaSat Inc., Harris Corp., and American Systems Corp., as well as several small technology businesses. IBM Global Business Services in Bethesda, Md., is Northrop Grumman’s major technology and services partner on CANES. Others on the Northrop Grumman team are Atlas Technologies, Beatty and Co. Computing, Juno Technologies, Syzygy Technologies Inc., and CenterBeam Inc.
Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin both will do the work on their CANES CCE contracts in San Diego, and should be finished by April 2011. Options could extend these jobs to September 2014, and increase their total contract awards to $775.3 million and $936.9 million, respectively. Awarding the contracts were officials of the Space and Naval Warfare System Command in San Diego.
For more information, visit Northrop Grumman Information Systems online at www.is.northropgrumman.com, or Lockheed Martin MS2 at www.lockheedmartin.com/ms2.
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