Sigma Defense in Running for Navy Next-Generation CANES Programs

A U.S. Sailor stands watch in the combat information center of Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Milius (DDG 69), April 9, 2026. Milius is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operation to support maritime security and stability in the Middle East. (U.S. Navy photo) (Image blurred for operation security purposes)

By Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor

ARLINGTON, Va. Sigma Defense, a company with a prime contract for the Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) program, is in the running for a down-select for the Next-Generation (NextGen) CANES program.

CANES provides a core set of highly survivable, secure shipboard network services that is a programmatic and technical infrastructure consolidation of previously separately delivered and managed networks into a single computing environment. It can handle unclassified, secret, and sensitive compartmentalized information domains across the fleet with applications for email, chat, voice, and weapon system command and control.

Sigma was awarded an OTA [Other Transactional Authority] for NextGen, said Ed Anderson, executive vice president for Innovative Mission Solutions, Sigma Defense, in an interview with Seapower. “It’s a clean sheet of paper but with existing hardware as a first go, and then we are going to get into hardware revisions to add capability and simplify the design. … We are in a down-selected prototype phase [with] at least one other competitor.”

Anderson noted comments made in recent remarks by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle when he decried the lack of standardization of the various CANES versions in the fleet, and the need for a new CANES design to overcome some of the difficulties of the system.

In February, SOLUTE, a Sigma Defense company, was awarded a seven-year, indefinite-delivery / indefinite-quantity contract by the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, California to provide technical and programmatic services for the CANES program. The three-year base contract is valued at $42 million and includes two, two-year option periods that can bring the overall value to $102 million, Sigma said in a release. 

“Through CANES, Sigma Defense will support the design, integration, and testing of systems that are part of the CANES architecture, provide software engineering support, including development and updates for all CANES platforms, ensure systems modernization and provide fleet readiness support,” the release said. 

Asked about the main challenge in the CANES installation on board ships, Anderson noted the “difficulty with installing is the duration required. We’re cutting holes in ships to get racks in, any change in hardware requires re-cutting those holes, a large amount of time re-routing cabling. So, one particular thing we are looking to do is, with the software change, what capability could we add? What hard spots could we alleviate? That is the key aim for our work on NextGen.”

Julie Ferraro, Sigma’s vice president for Maritime Networks, told Seapower that CANES is installed on new ships and retrofitted on ships already delivered.

“The intention for NextGen is that we will handle a “green field” and a “brown field,” clean install or with existing configurations at different levels of integration,” she said.

Anderson said he expected the Navy to make a further down-select in June or July 2026.

Sigma Defense is based at Perry, Georgia, with other offices in San Diego, California; Huntsville, Alabama; Turnersville New Jersey: Orlando, Florida; and Arlington, Virginia.