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’s Merritt Island Launch Annex (MILA) in Florida was decommissioned this week, another fallout from the end of the space shuttle program. Located on 61 acres of land just west of Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Visitors Complex, MILA provided communications between the orbiters and Mission Control in Houston during launches and landings.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Faced with the choice of waiting for NASA and the U.S. Energy Department to develop a new type of nuclear radioisotope thermoelectric generator—typically used for deep-space missions — or design a survey of Jupiter with a solar-powered probe, program scientists opted for the latter, believing there was less risk to schedule and cost.
CAPE CANAVERAL — The first International Space Station crew in the post-shuttle era had an additional stop in its training flow — Space Exploration Technologies’ Hawthorne, Calif., facility for familiarization with the company’s Dragon cargo freighter.
