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.
Europe's Ulysses spacecraft is once again passing over the Sun's south polar area as it continues tracking sunspots and other cyclical solar activity. Previous solar probes stayed near the plane of the Sun's equator, the European Space Agency says. From its highly inclined orbit, Ulysses has twice before orbited over the Sun's polar areas, first during a lull in sunspot activity and then during a period of frequent sunspots. This third pass is during a sunspot minimum, after a reversal in the Sun's magnetic poles.
SES Global has split awards for two new spacecraft, contracting NSS-9, intended for its New Skies affiliate, to Orbital Sciences Corp. and Astra 3b to EADS Astrium. NSS-9, a 2.2-metric-ton, 2.3-kw. spacecraft with 28 active C-band transponders, will be launched to 183 deg. E. Long. in 2008, permitting NSS-5 to be moved to an as-yet undisclosed orbital slot. The satellite will have three flexible beams serving the Western and Eastern Hemispheres and the entire visible planet, in line with New Skies' role as SES's third pillar, alongside Astra and Americom.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Cray Inc. and IBM to proceed to the next phase of the High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) program, which is aimed at accelerating the state of the art in supercomputing. Between now and the end of Phase III in 2010, Cray will receive $250 million total and IBM $244 million. The initial award value was $25 million for Cray and $12.2 million for IBM. Sun Microsystems also proposed for Phase III but was not selected.
