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.
Although the international customer base for defense electronics and weapon systems is growing, most countries outside the U.S. still don't have the "appetite" to take the lead on development programs, according to Robert Iorizzo, president of Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector. "Traditionally, you'll find that very few countries have the appetite or the budget to do major developments, and so they prefer to buy what's already developed, or some version of it," Iorizzo said at a press briefing in Washington Jan. 17.
NASA and its industry partners hope that the third-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV), scheduled to fly in 2025, could actually end up being two spacecraft in one. Boeing and Lockheed Martin's third-generation RLV designs are two-stage vehicles that rely on a turbine-based combination cycle (TBCC) engine for their first stage.
NASA's Revolutionary Turbine Accelerator (RTA) engine, which could power the agency's X-43B hypersonic demonstrator, will require the most advanced unclassified turbine engine ever built, according to Project Manager Paul Bartolotta. RTA is a turbine-based combination cycle (TBCC) engine that will use a turbine accelerator to get from zero to roughly Mach 4, at which point a dual-mode scramjet will take over for speeds up to Mach 7 and beyond.
