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.
After the first tranches of its ambitious low-Earth orbit constellation faced production and supply chain issues that delays launches, the Space Development Agency is trying something new for its next round of satellite procurement. The agency awarded a $55 million contract to SAIC on April 22 for “system engineering and integration…