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 four-member Axiom-1 private astronaut mission departed the International Space Station on April 24, ending the first U.S.-backed commercial flight to the orbital outpost and clearing the docking port for the arrival of the next ISS resident crew later this week.
NASA plans to suspend additional tanking tests of the Space Launch System and return the Moon rocket to Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs, the space agency said.
Technicians on April 15 were preparing to access the tail service mast unit of the Space Launch System mobile launcher in an effort to stem a liquid hydrogen leak that prompted the launch team to scrub a tanking test of the Moon-class rocket on April 14.
