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.
SpaceDev's "Dream Chaser" suborbital spacecraft could serve as a hypersonic testbed for NASA, according to company founder and CEO Jim Benson. The piloted Dream Chaser is derived from an existing X-Plane concept and has an altitude goal of about 100 miles (DAILY, Sept. 21). It would be launched vertically by a single hybrid rocket motor the company is developing for the SpaceDev Streaker, a family of small launch vehicles intended to deliver small satellites to orbit.
The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) is preparing to take over the job of providing Landsat-type remote sensing imagery starting with the first NPOESS launch in 2009. NASA manages the Landsat spacecraft, with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) processing and distributing the data. Last year, NASA tried to partner with industry to develop a follow-on to the current Landsat spacecraft, Landsat 7, by 2007.
A National Academies panel is urging NASA to slow the development of one of the two proposed space telescopes in its Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) mission to ensure that results from previous planet-finding efforts can be incorporated into its design. NASA originally had planned to choose between two competing TPF architectures and launch a single observatory (DAILY, June 20, 2002). This plan changed, however, following the announcement of President Bush's new vision for space exploration in January.
