Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
China’s Shenzhou 7 spacecraft made a safe parachute landing Sept. 28 in northern China, capping off a mission that marked the country’s third manned spaceflight and included its first spacewalk. Astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming, and Jing Haipeng spent a total of 68 hours in space, including the 20-minute spacewalk on Sept. 27, according to China’s Xinhua news agency. The spacecraft orbited the Earth 46 times.
Congress on Sept. 27 passed a continuing resolution (CR) funding NASA until early March of next year that includes an extended exemption to the Iran, North Korea, Syria Non-proliferation Act (INKSNA) that will allow the space agency to continue purchasing Russian Soyuz trips to the International Space Station. The INKSNA waiver extends the previous deadline of Dec. 31, 2011 out to July 2016, covering the projected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the retirement of the space shuttle and the scheduled 2015 debut of the Orion spacecraft.
The Falcon 1 commercial rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time Sept. 28, after three failed attempts since 2006. Developer Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) says the successful Flight 4 makes the low-cost launcher the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to orbit the Earth.
