Contractor team to pursue CANES

Lockheed Martin Corp. is partnering with four information technology companies to pursue the Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) contracting opportunity.

The Bethesda, Md., contractor has lined up General Dynamics Corp., ViaSat Inc., Harris Corp., and American Systems Corp. to pursue the Navy’s massive secure computing environment project, Lockheed Martin officials said May 4.

BAE Systems Inc. announced in February that is has formed a team comprising Raytheon Co. and DRS Technologies Inc. to pursue CANES.

The Lockheed-led team would use Lockheed Martin’s Technology Collaboration Center located in San Diego for integration and testing of CANES systems, company officials said in a news statement. The center’s purpose is to facilitate small business technology development as it relates to Navy systems.

Lockheed Martin has furnished computing infrastructure support to the Navy for more than 50 years, said Karen Conti, vice president for Lockheed Martin’s CANES effort. The company has more than 7,000 platforms deployed across the fleet and has extensive experience in managing the evolution of naval IT systems.

General Dynamics would contribute to the effort through its expertise in tactical networking, cross-domain security, systems management and expertise in shipboard installation. For its part, ViaSat would bring focused experience in information assurance.

Harris would bring its wireless communications experience to the project to field reliable, low-cost communications systems, and American Systems would contribute secure communications technology and information infrastructures.

The Navy established the CANES program to consolidate its shipboard information systems networks, reduce costs and increase system reliability. The Navy’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence will award a system design and development contract for the common computing environment portion of the program to two teams later this year. The down-select to a single prime contractor is expected to occur in 2011.