Northrop Grumman gets contracts for work on Navy aircraft carriers

Northrop Grumman gets Navy aircraft carrier work

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Northrop Grumman Corp. announced two contracts on Monday for work on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.

One contract is for engineering, technical and maintenance work to upgrade aircraft carriers. The work will be done by Northrop subsidiary Amsec LLC under a five-year contract worth up to $73.4 million.

The work will be done in Norfolk, Va., San Diego, Bremerton, Wash. and other locations and is expected to be done by May 2011, the company said.

The other contract is to upgrade the bridges on five Nimitz-class U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.

Northrop said the fixed-price contract will complete bridge upgrades for the entire Nimitz class. It said the upgrade would make navigation safer, and would give the bridge systems more in common with systems and software used on other Navy ships.

The value of the contract was not specified in a news release.

Northrop said the system includes so-called “paperless navigation” that will allow the crew to switch from plotting their course on paper nautical charts to computerized displays.

Northrop shares fell $1.15 to close at $57.09.