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.
Teams led by Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX will receive nearly $1 billion in NASA funding to hone designs and development plans for lunar landing systems to carry a pair of U.S. astronauts to the Moon’s surface in 2024, a time frame the agency is sticking with despite economic and social upheavals caused by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
Getting the spacecraft and technicians to the Tanegashima Space Center for launch preparations was extra challenging due to travel quarantines, workplace shutdowns and health issues stemming from COVID-19.
