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.
Set to launch Oct. 19, NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission will use a new orbit-raising method that could enable a variety of future small science missions to get beyond low Earth orbit without upgrading to large launch vehicles.
Top NASA managers will decide next week the fate of the Mars Science Laboratory, a nuclear-powered astrobiology rover that already has cost $1.5 billion and is likely to hit the 30-percent overrun ceiling that could trigger cancellation by Congress. Officials from the agency’s Mars Exploration Program (MEP) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are set to brief Administrator Mike Griffin and Science Associate Administrator Ed Weiler on the program next week.
Congress on Sept. 27 passed a continuing resolution (CR) funding NASA until early March of next year that includes an extended exemption to the Iran, North Korea, Syria Non-proliferation Act (INKSNA) that will allow the space agency to continue purchasing Russian Soyuz trips to the International Space Station. The INKSNA waiver extends the previous deadline of Dec. 31, 2011 out to July 2016, covering the projected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the retirement of the space shuttle and the scheduled 2015 debut of the Orion spacecraft.
