L3 Technologies Awarded $42.7 Million Navy Towed Array Sonar Contract
L3 Technologies Inc., Chesapeake Sciences Division of Millersville, Maryland, received a five-year, sole-source contract to supply hardware and services for Navy towed array programs, the Defense Department said.
MILLERSVILLE, MARYLAND — LEDE L3 Technologies Inc., Chesapeake Sciences Division, a Millersville, Maryland, supplier of undersea sensor systems, received a $42.7 million Navy contract for towed array sonar hardware and services, the Defense Department said July 10, 2026.
NARRATIVE The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity award blends cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, and cost-only provisions. It covers hardware and services for towed array programs that rely on towed array integrated product team telemetry. Work will run in Millersville, and the ordering period ends in July 2031, the department said (see war.gov).
The first delivery order will obligate $171,010 in service cost center funds to meet the minimum guarantee, and those funds will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Division Newport, in Newport, Rhode Island, is the contracting activity under contract N66604-26-D-P600. The department awarded the contract without competition, citing the authority of 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(5), as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-5, along with 15 U.S. Code 638(r)(1). That statutory path lets the Navy direct work to a single source when a law authorizes or requires it. Towed arrays are long strings of hydrophones dragged behind submarines and surface ships to detect and track other vessels by sound. The systems form a core part of the Navy’s undersea surveillance capability, and the telemetry work in this contract supports how data from those arrays reaches operators. The award is the second contract to the division in 2026, lifting its total for the year to $86.8 million, and the 47th Defense Department contract in Maryland during 2026 (see war.gov).
BUTTON Navy investment in towed array sonar traces back decades. The service fielded its first towed arrays in the 1960s as Cold War submarine patrols pushed detection ranges outward, and the SURTASS program later extended the concept to surveillance ships in the 1980s (see war.gov). Firms in the Maryland and Rhode Island undersea corridor have supplied the systems ever since, tying regional employers to the Navy’s long contest for control of the deep ocean.
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