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.
More than 50 years after portraying the fictional captain of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, actor William Shatner joined two paying passengers and a Blue Origin vice president for the company’s second crewed flight to suborbital space.
The cargo ship transporting the James Webb Space Telescope arrived in French Guiana on Oct. 12, completing a 1,500-mi. journey that sets the stage for the observatory’s launch aboard an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket on Dec. 18.
