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.
STS-114 Mission Specialist Steve Robinson performed a first-of-its-kind repair of shuttle Discovery during a spacewalk the morning of Aug. 3, pulling out two protruding gap-fillers that might have caused the orbiter problems during re-entry. Robinson "gently tugged" on the protrusions until they popped out, according to NASA, completing the repair just before 9 a.m. EDT. "It looks like this big patient is cured," he said afterward.
Discovery's crew spent much of Aug. 2 preparing for the next day's delicate on-orbit repair job during which Astronaut Steve Robinson will remove two protruding tile gap-fillers from the shuttle's underbelly. "It's conceptually very simple, but it has to be done very, very carefully," Robinson said during a press conference from orbit Aug. 2.
The STS-114 spacewalk team is planning ahead for the possibility that Discovery's crew will have to perform an unprecedented on-orbit repair of two protruding "gap-fillers" on the shuttle's underbelly before coming home. "We're getting everything staged and ready to go," STS-114 Lead Spacewalk Officer Cindy Begley said during a press conference Aug. 1. If the repair is approved, STS-114 Mission Specialist Steve Robinson will perform it as part of the mission's third spacewalk on Aug. 3.
