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.
Space shuttle main engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne last week sent out notices of upcoming layoffs to 69 workers at Kennedy Space Center. The layoffs take effect July 31, the date the company’s four-month, $36.9 million contract extension with NASA for support of the space shuttle main engines ends. The Florida layoffs are part of 300 job cuts across the company.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency focused on space and related technologies, has hired Masten Space Systems for a series of suborbital demonstration flights from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 36. The $400,000 launch services contract includes multiple flights of Masten’s vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) reusable suborbital vehicle, called Xaero.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — As NASA starts the countdown for Endeavour’s second launch attempt, engineers have homed in on a potentially faulty thermostat as the likely cause of the auxiliary power unit (APU) heater problem that scrubbed the first liftoff try. Launch of Endeavour on its 25th and final flight is targeted for 8:56 a.m. EDT Monday. Meteorologists at the 45th Space Wing predict a 70% chance of acceptable weather.
