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 second Electron rocket is due to roll out to its launch pad in about eight weeks, company founder Peter Beck says. “If test flight two is good and we feel we don’t have a lot more to learn, then we’ll jump into commercial operations on flight three, for sure."
The technologies that the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency needs to continue fulfilling its missions will require it to forge unprecedented business ties to a commercial data-collection and analysis industry that has no interest or desire in working behind classified doors.
The Israel Space Agency and prime contractor Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) dealt themselves a place in the emerging electric propulsion technology sector.
