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, Fla. — The state of Florida has been awarded a license from FAA to operate Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 46 for commercial use. The license, effective July 1, will clear the way for Space Florida, the state’s space development arm, to formally pursue customers, including a Lockheed Martin-Alliant Techsystems (ATK) partnership that in March announced plans to return Athena II launch vehicles to the market.
CAPE CANAVERAL—NASA managers July 1 decided to delay the last two missions of the space shuttle program to allow more time to prepare a final load of spare parts for the International Space Station. To cover shuttle operating expenses beyond Sept. 30, NASA will dip into an expected $600-million cushion promised by legislators and tap savings that managers have been accruing from the program’s roughly $200 million monthly allotments.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Florida’s space development agency will give $500,000 to a Space Coast startup that is working to parlay its parent company’s aerospace expertise into a fuel-efficient diesel-hybrid sports car designed and built in Brevard County. Avera Motors of Rockledge, Fla., an offshoot of Mainstream Engineering Corp., also of Rockledge, will turn over its first prototype to Space Florida, which plans to tap Kennedy Space Center expertise for product and manufacturing assessments under a proposed Space Act Agreement with NASA.
