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.
The U.S. Air Force’s upcoming Operationally Responsive Space-3 (ORS-3) demonstration, poised for launch Nov. 19 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Va., is aimed at demonstrating a bevy of new technologies, as well as “commercial-like” launch processes that could reduce the cost of future national security space missions.
Lockheed Martin is closing and consolidating several U.S. facilities and laying off 4,000 employees in what the company calls an effort “to increase the efficiency of its operations and improve the affordability of its products and services” in light of continued reductions in U.S. government spending. The cuts will leave the company with 112,000 employees. The company’s workforce has been reduced 23% since 2008, when it employed 146,000.
FAA has given Applied Research Associates Inc.’s (ARA) Nighthawk IV micro-UAV a special airworthiness certificate, which will allow potential customers to apply for agency approval to operate the 2-lb. aicraft in the national airspace.