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.
A week after winning a $135 million NASA contract to support work on its fully reusable, deep-space transportation system, SpaceX conducted a successful static test fire of a full-size, second-stage Starship prototype.
NASA has awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a $1.8 billion contract to manufacture 18 additional RS-25 engines to support Space Launch System flights to the Moon.
SpaceX completed the 27th and final test of its Mk 3 parachutes on May 1, one of the final milestones before NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Doug Hurley are cleared for a flight test aboard a Crew Dragon capsule.
