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.
Uncharacteristically bad weather at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California has delayed the return of space shuttle Discovery to its home at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After two days of thunderstorm delays, NASA is scheduled to try again at roughly 9:15 a.m. Aug. 19 to fly Discovery home atop its modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, according to spokesman Allard Beutel. Discovery landed at Dryden on Aug. 9 after being waved off from KSC by bad weather.
The Department of Defense is making progress in tackling problems of manned/unmanned aircraft integration that have been uncovered by recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Dyke Weatherington, deputy in charge of the Unmanned Aerial System Planning Task Force.
A battery problem with the spacecraft's Delta IV rocket discovered in the last five minutes of the countdown scuttled NASA's latest attempt to launch the GOES-N weather satellite on Aug. 16. As the rocket's onboard power systems were being brought online, technicians became concerned with voltage readings on a battery in the rocket's second stage that powers the self-destruct system, according to Boeing spokesman Robert Villanueva. The team was unable to diagnose the problem in time to make the launch window, which closed at 7:06 p.m. EDT.
