General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), has been awarded a US$22.2 million contract from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) to support the Naval Integrated Tactical Environmental System Next Generation (NITES-Next) program. The contract has a potential value of $67.7 million over five years if all options are exercised.

Through the contract, General Dynamics will design, develop, integrate, test and support the deployment of NITES-Next, which displays tailored meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) products on mission-planning and command-and-control systems. NITES-Next is a net-centric solution based on a service-oriented architecture. This solution will employ geographic information systems (GIS), support physics-based modeling and implement an advanced database design. NITES-Next will make METOC products available across the Global Information Grid (GIG) in a joint environment.