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.
A National Academies panel is urging NASA to slow the development of one of the two proposed space telescopes in its Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) mission to ensure that results from previous planet-finding efforts can be incorporated into its design. NASA originally had planned to choose between two competing TPF architectures and launch a single observatory (DAILY, June 20, 2002). This plan changed, however, following the announcement of President Bush's new vision for space exploration in January.
NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida appears to have suffered only minor damage from this past weekend's arrival of Hurricane Jeanne, although the cumulative effect of recent storms on the agency's return to flight effort has yet to be determined.
The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) has awarded a team led by Lockheed Martin the $2.11 billion prime contract for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), a program whose total value is estimated at $6.4 billion. The seven-year contract includes options that could bring its value alone to $3.26 billion, according to SPAWAR. If all options are exercised, work will continue through 2015. The Lockheed Martin team beat a team led by Raytheon.
