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No matter how vast it seems, even space gets a little crowded. Hundreds of active satellites and thousands of pieces of space junk clutter the area surrounding Earth-from lost astronaut tools to pieces of rockets. To help track and identify the debris, the U.S. Air Force is replacing its aging and outdated Air Force Space Surveillance System, which has been in service for 50 years.

A research project funded by the U.S. Air Force and taking place among academics in Texas is advancing a new class of metamaterials that could open up a range of applications for defense requirements. By finding new methods for creating synthetic compounds, scientists believe they can develop nanomaterials with properties better suited for products such as electronics than anything found in nature.

As the U.S. human space program transitions to a new era of commercial space exploitation, a legacy space debris detection system is about to give way to a high-technology replacement designed to introduce state-of-the-art situational awareness to orbital mechanics. The new system would be able to detect objects in earth orbit as small as the golf ball that astronaut Alan Shepard smacked during his moonwalk.

The U.S. Air Force is clearing the air for advanced networking as it takes its next step into cyberspace exploitation. A unified effort aims to improve battlespace information sharing along with active cyberoperations, both offensive and defensive.

MEI Technologies Incorporated, Houston, Texas, is being awarded a cost-reimbursable and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract worth about $7 million to provide research and development for war gaming efforts t

Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, Network Communications Systems, San Diego, California, is being awarded a nearly $9 million fixed-price-incentive-firm, firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee, cos

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Incorporated, Poway, California, is being awarded a more than $8 million cost-plus-incentive-fee, firm-fixed-price contract for MQ-1 spares and retrofit kits.&nbsp

Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, Integrated Systems Air Combat Systems, San Diego, California, is being awarded an approximate $26 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification for Sand Drago

Panasonic Solutions Company, Secaucus, New Jersey, recently announced that the U.S.

Lockheed Martin Corporation, Archbold, Pennsylvania, and Raytheon Missile Systems of Tucson, Arizona, are being awarded a $475 million firm-fixed-price contract for Paveway II laser-guided bomb comput