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 is investigating a "serious anomaly" with the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) "Spirit" that has left it unable to send data back to Earth and apparently put it into a preprogrammed "fault mode," the space agency said Jan. 22. Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., discovered the problem on the morning of Jan. 21 after sending a series of commands to the rover, which was poised to begin examining a rock near its landing site at Gusev Crater.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) has asked NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe to reconsider his decision to cancel servicing missions for the Hubble Space Telescope, and is requesting that he appoint an independent panel to review the issue. In a Jan. 21 letter to O'Keefe, Mikulski, the ranking member of the Senate subcommittee on VA/HUD and Independent Agencies, also asked that all preparation and training activities associated with the servicing mission be continued until Congress has reviewed the situation and made a decision.
Lockheed Martin has chosen its missile production facility in Troy, Ala., as the site where it would build Joint Common Missile (JCM) if the company wins the prime contract for the program. The Troy facility produces the Longbow, Hellfire, and Javelin missiles, according to Rick Edwards, director of tactical missiles for Lockheed Martin.
