Northrop Grumman announces US Navy CANES bid

Northrop Grumman has announced that it will submit a bid for the US Navy Consolidated Afloat Network and Enterprise Services (CANES) full deployment contract. CANES is the US Navy’s next generation tactical afloat network that aims to consolidate five legacy networks into one to enhance operational effectiveness.

The primary goals of the CANES programme are to provide a secure afloat network required for naval and joint operations; consolidate and reduce the number of afloat networks through the use of a Common Computing Environment and mature cross domain technologies; reduce infrastructure footprint and associated logistics, sustainment and training costs; and increase reliability, security, interoperability and application hosting to meet current and projected warfighter requirements.

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command released the full production request for proposals for procurement of the programme on 30 May 2013.

Northrop Grumman said its solution offers considerable cost and performance improvements over existing shipboard networks including a modernised common C4I architecture with increased security and reduced development, deployment and life cycle costs.

Mike Twyman, vice president and general manager of the Defense Systems division of Northrop Grumman Information Systems, said: ‘The CANES programme is critical to modernising the navy afloat network for enhanced security, affordability and delivering relevant capabilities to the warfighter. With our experience on the development and limited deployment phase, we and our team members are confident we will offer a solution to best achieve the navy's mission and objectives. We stand ready to produce and help accelerate the delivery of CANES to the fleet.’

If successful, Northrop Grumman will use its Modular Open Systems Approach-Competitive (MOSA-C) strategic business and engineering process to enable continuous competition on the programme, thereby driving down life cycle costs. MOSA-C ensures vendor-neutral, enduring solutions that improve interoperability and lower the total cost of ownership.

The CANES full deployment contract is anticipated to be awarded in the second quarter of FY2014.