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 has formally kicked off a joint industry-government effort to begin introducing high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the national airspace, with the first goal of enabling routine, file-and-fly operations for UAVs cruising above 40,000 feet by fiscal year 2006. The major players are NASA, the FAA, the Department of Defense and the UNITE (UAV National Industry Team) industry group, which consists of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, AeroVironment, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Aurora Flight Sciences.
NASA's chief financial officer defended the agency's ongoing financial reform effort before lawmakers at a hearing in Washington May 19, responding to questions arising from NASA's second troubled audit in the past three years. In January, independent auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers determined that it could not render an opinion on NASA's fiscal 2003 financial statements, citing insufficient documentation. NASA received a similar "disclaimed" audit for FY '01, although it received a clean audit for FY '02 (DAILY, March 21, 2002).
The development of an instrumented boom for inspecting the space shuttle's leading edge panels in orbit continues to jeopardize NASA's goal of returning the shuttle to flight in March or April of next year, according to the Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group.
