Werner Dahm, Air Force chief scientist for the past two years, is returning to academia, USAF officials announced Thursday. To replace him, the Air Force leadership has assigned Mark Maybury, who is currently executive director of Mitre Corporation’s information technology division in Bedford, Mass. Dahm came on as chief scientist in October 2008 after taking a leave of absence from the aerospace engineering faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to which he is now returning. During his two-year tenure, Dahm was the leading figure behind the Air Force’s recently issued Technology Horizons vision document that laid out the service’s science and technology priorities over the next decade.
Over a two-week period beginning in late September and culminating in mid-October, a Russian satellite maneuvered dangerously close to a commercial Finnish satellite currently providing intelligence to the Ukrainian military. The apparent provocation has experts wondering why Russia made the move—testing new capabilities, collecting intelligence, or trying to intimidate the…