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.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has found evidence that a body of hydrocarbon on Saturn’s moon Titan is liquid, based on its reflectivity in infrared wavelengths. “Ontario Lacus” is larger than its namesake, Lake Ontario in North America, and absorbs 99.9% of the light that hits it at the 5-micron wavelength, according to Robert Brown of the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He is principal investigator on Cassini’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). “For it to be that dark, the surface has to be extremely quiescent, mirror smooth,” he says.
A brief in the Aug. 6 Aerospace DAILY contained incorrect information about the fate of the spacecraft, AMC-14, that was aboard a Proton M rocket that failed in March. The satellite was stranded in the wrong orbit.
AERO DEPUTY: NASA has appointed Thomas Irvine as the new deputy associate administrator for the agency’s aeronautics directorate. He will report to Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Jaiwon Shin. Since May 2005, Irvine has been the director of the Mission Support Office for the aeronautics directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington. “Tom has been instrumental in the restructuring and management of NASA’s aeronautics research programs,” Shin said in a statement.
