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 timeliness of commercial imagery data is becoming the next issue over which the U.S. government may want to exercise "shutter control," according to Air Force Col. Anthony Russo, chief of the space division at U.S. Strategic Command. "The argument has shifted," Russo said during a Feb. 8 lunch in Washington sponsored by the Center for Media and Security. "It used to be the argument over whether we could release less-than-one-meter resolution imagery, which was military quality at the time. The issue now is about real time."
The U.S. Navy is developing a master plan for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that should be complete in June, according to Jim Thomsen, program executive officer for littoral and mine warfare. The master plan follows a similar plan for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) released last year, which specified four classes of UUV that the service plans to acquire. The Navy wants to move toward standardized families of unmanned vehicles so as not to overtax support infrastructure, Thomsen said.
The U.S. military is projecting that there will be 4,000 robotic systems in Iraq and Afghanistan before the end of fiscal 2006, as compared to 2,400 systems in theater today. There will be 22 different robots, ranging from iRobot's PackBot and the Rapid Equipping Force's MarcBot, to larger systems such as the Panther -- a modified Abrams tank equipped with a countermine flail. U.S. military forces are using robots for improvised explosive device (IED) disposal, force protection, countermine, and urban operations missions.
