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.
CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA’s Juno, an innovative and ambitious mission intended to resolve some long-standing mysteries about the formation of Jupiter and the Solar System, headed to the launch pad in Florida July 25 in anticipation of launching Aug. 5.
With the space shuttle program ending and U.S. transportation to the International Space Station falling on private industry’s shoulders, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has hired away a chief legislative affairs executive from competitor Orbital Sciences Corp. SpaceX and Orbital Sciences share $3.5 billion in NASA contracts to fly cargo to the space station. SpaceX, a privately held company founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, also won $75 million in NASA funding to help upgrade its Dragon cargo capsule for human transport.
NASA has selected a Space Florida-led team called the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis) to manage commercial, industrial and other non-NASA uses of the International Space Station (ISS). Partners in the project, which initially will be worth up to $15 million a year, include Boeing, Bionetics and Dynamic Corp. Space Florida is a state-backed economic development board focused on building and diversifying Florida’s aerospace businesses. Casis will be based at the Space Life Sciences Laboratory, adjacent to Kennedy Space Center.
