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.
Jefferson Morris (Washington), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
NASA and the European Space Agency will take steps toward merging their outer-planet exploration plans, eyeing a mission that would send separate U.S. and European spacecraft to visit the four largest moons of Jupiter circa 2026, while also researching a possible joint visit to Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus.
PIECE BY PIECE: The last newly manufactured section of the Ares I-X test rocket arrived at the Assembly and Refurbishment Facility of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Feb. 20. Called the frustum, the funnel-shaped section serves to transition the primary flight loads from the rocket’s upper stage to the first stage, and is located between the upper stage and the forward skirt extension. The part is built by Major Tool and Machine Inc. of Indiana under a subcontract with Ares I prime ATK.
BIG BURST: NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope has imaged a gamma-ray burst with the greatest total energy ever witnessed. The explosion, designated GRB 080916C, took place at 7:13 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15, 2008, in the constellation Carina. Working in tandem, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope and Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor instruments provided a view of the blast’s initial emission from energies between 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.
