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 indefinitely delayed the launch of the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) after the June 2 failure of the modified Pegasus booster which was carrying the X-43A hypersonic test vehicle. HESSI was scheduled to launch on a standard Orbital Sciences-built Pegasus XL from Cape Canaveral, Fla. June 7. The booster for the X-43A is a derivative of the Pegasus, in which the payload fairing and the second and third stages of the rocket have been eliminated.
International Space Station (ISS) astronauts will not have to perform an external spacewalk this week to fix problems with the $600 million Canadarm2 now that NASA has ruled out the Arm Controller Unit (ACU) as the source of recent problems. Had the ACU been identified as the culprit, a scheduled June 8 "internal spacewalk" - where astronauts work in a depressurized part of the station, in their spacesuits - could have been extended to include an external spacewalk to replace the unit.
Military interoperability - the ability to effectively execute joint and combined operations - does not yet exist, according to a group of military leaders. Speaking at a naval interoperability workshop in Crystal City, Va. May 30, David Oliver, principal deputy under secretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (ATL), said that when it comes to interoperability, "we aren't doing very well, and we haven't done well for a long time.
