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.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The backshell, cruise stage and heat shield for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) arrived at Kennedy Space Center Thursday night, with the rover and descent phase slated to follow next month. An Air Force C-17 Globemaster III carrying the MSL backshell and cruise stage took off early Thursday from March Air Reserve Base in California. The aircraft then stopped at Buckley AFB near Denver to pick up the rover’s heat shield.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Shuttle Endeavour’s six-man STS-134 crew returned to Kennedy Space Center on May 12 for a second launch attempt slated for 8:56 a.m. EDT on May 16. “It’s great to be back,” Endeavour commander Mark Kelly told reporters after he and his all-veteran crew landed at Kennedy. The astronauts, who are in the process of sleep-shifting to accommodate an overnight work schedule, flew together on a single Gulfstream aircraft.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Kennedy Space Center workers have installed and retested a new Loads Control Assembly-2 (LCA-2) box in space shuttle Endeavour, as well as replaced potentially faulty wiring between the electronics box and the auxiliary power unit (APU) heater that scrubbed the shuttle’s initial launch attempt on April 29.
