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.
Programmatic and weather issues have forced NASA Ames Research Center's MATADOR Mars airplane program to push its next high-altitude flight-test back to no earlier than April 2006. A two-thirds scale version of the MATADOR unmanned aircraft built by the Naval Research Laboratory will launch from a balloon in restricted airspace over Canada's Suffield Range at an altitude of 105,000 feet, where the thin atmosphere approximates conditions on Mars.
NASA has formed a "tiger team" led by International Space Station Program Manager Bill Gerstenmaier that is studying the remaining trouble spots on the shuttle's external tank where potentially dangerous foam debris was seen coming loose during Discovery's launch. "My purpose in having this team is to ... improve our knowledge base on how we go put foam on tanks and how we ensure it doesn't come off," Gerstenmaier said during a press conference in Houston Aug. 5. "Because it's obvious it's not an easy problem."
A new study from the National Research Council recommends that NASA update its procedures for preventing the contamination of Mars in light of new research suggesting that some Earth microbes might be hardy enough to survive in certain places there.
