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.
The high-profile Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle physics experiment to be mounted on the International Space Station will be outfitted with a magnet flown in 1998 on the STS-91 prototype AMS.
Irene Klotz (Kennedy Space Center), Frank Morring, Jr. (Colorado Springs)
President Barack Obama has taken ownership of the turnabout space-exploration policy embodied in his Fiscal 2011 NASA budget request, opening up a potentially game-changing debate on the U.S. role in space that is likely to encompass much more than the civilian space agency before it is over.
President Barack Obama on April 15 sketched out plans for an invigorated space exploration program that will put astronauts on an asteroid in the 2020s and in orbit around Mars a decade later. Speaking before an invitation-only audience at Kennedy Space Center’s Operations and Checkout (O&C) Building, Obama made no mention of extending the space shuttle or restarting manufacturing lines to provide components for a future heavy-lift rocket.
