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.
NASA plans to add a crewed lunar landing on its Artemis IV mission—previously a dedicated assembly flight for the lunar Gateway—and award a contract to SpaceX to ferry astronauts to and from lunar orbit and the Moon’s surface.
The Boeing-built core stage for the second Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is nearing completion at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans.
With its first two satellites set for launch in early 2023, Amazon on Oct. 27 unveiled plans for an additional, 172,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing plant in the Seattle area that will be dedicated to production of Kuiper satellites for an Amazon-owned high-speed broadband network.
