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 Pentagon's latest cost estimate for the scaled-back National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program is $11.5 billion through 2020, according to a U.S. Air Force spokeswoman. NPOESS is built by Northrop Grumman and managed jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Air Force and NASA. Plagued by sensor development problems, NPOESS breached the 25 percent Nunn-McCurdy cost growth cap last year.
Boeing Phantom Works will equip the ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to look for released biological agents in the wake of U.S. military strikes under an $8.2 million, two-year contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). DTRA and Boeing will work with the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Navy Third Fleet on the program, formally known as the Biological Combat Assessment System (BCAS) Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD).
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (RD&A) Delores Etter has signed into effect a new policy that will try to "curb" contractors' and program managers' "optimism" - and thus, overruns - in software projects. The policy requires Navy software contractors to show their "maturity and the discipline and the experience" to predict software development costs and schedules, she told a Navy Opportunity Forum in Washington on June 5.
