Irene Klotz is Senior Space Editor for Aviation Week, based in Cape Canaveral. Before joining Aviation Week in 2017, Irene spent 25 years as a wire service reporter covering human and robotic spaceflight, commercial space, astronomy, science and technology for Reuters and United Press International. She also worked with Discovery Communications, Discovery News and was a founding member of Space.com.
Irene cut her teeth on the space beat at Florida Today newspaper, a business writer enchanted by the colorful entrepreneurs who wanted access to Air Force launch facilities and assets after commercial payloads were taken off the space shuttles following the 1986 Challenger accident. Commercial space remains the focus of her work, along with a keen interest in the search for life beyond Earth.
A graduate of Northwestern University, Irene is the 2014 recipient of the Harry Kolcum Memorial News and Communications Award, named in honor of the late Aviation Week managing editor and Cape Canaveral senior editor who was among Irene’s earliest mentors.
Nearly nine months after the Trump administration released its fiscal 2026 budget proposal to slash NASA funding by 24%, Congress is poised to reject the cuts.
NASA sets Jan. 17 as the "no earlier than" date for the roll out of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule to be used for the Artemis II mission to take four astronauts around the Moon.
As part of the SpaceX Crew-11 astronauts’ upcoming early departure from the ISS, command of the orbital outpost will be turned over to a Russian cosmonaut.
