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, NOAA: The Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA has approved a total fiscal 2010 budget for the agency of $18.68 billion, which matches the Obama administration’s request and is $903 million above the agency’s FY ’09 level, the subcommittee says. The bill includes $3.16 billion for the space shuttle, $2.27 billion for the International Space Station, $3.5 billion for the Ares and Orion vehicles, $4.5 billion for science and $507 million for aeronautics research.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) entered orbit around the moon the morning of June 23 after a four-and-a-half day journey from Earth, marking the agency’s first trip back to Earth’s natural satellite in more than a decade. Controllers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., confirmed a successful lunar orbit insertion at 6:27 a.m. EDT. Launch took place on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on June 18.
SENSITIVE PREDATOR: The U.S. Air Force is awarding a $71 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems’ Electromagnetic System Laboratory of San Jose, Calif., to provide MQ-1 unmanned aerial system (UAS) communications intelligence airborne signals intelligence Payload-1 C scaled sensors for the Predator UAS. The Reconnaissance Systems Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
