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 officially chosen to proceed with the troubled SOFIA airborne astronomy mission, which had its $57.1 million fiscal 2007 budget request cut to zero following a two-year schedule slip and cost growth due to technical problems. Administrator Michael Griffin finally confirmed that NASA will proceed with SOFIA during a July 6 speech to the NASA Advisory Council's science subcommittee in Washington. The details of when and how money might be reprogrammed to sustain the effort aren't yet known, according to a NASA spokesman.
Congress should increase the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) budget for unmanned aircraft and create a testbed in Alaska for integrating them into the national air space, argues the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). In a white paper prepared for a Senate hearing this week on unmanned aircraft operations in Alaska and Hawaii, AIAA urges Congress to appropriate $90 million per year for NOAA to buy unmanned aerial system (UAS) services starting in Fiscal 2007.
The closing of the merger between erstwhile rivals Intelsat and PanAmSat creates the biggest satellite operator in the industry's history and puts more pressure on smaller companies to join together or specialize to stay afloat in a marketplace still characterized by excess supply.
