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.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — With little fanfare, the Kennedy Space Center shuttle launch team gathered at 1 p.m. July 5 to begin the 135th and last countdown for a shuttle launch, aiming to get Atlantis and its four-member crew off the ground at 11:26 a.m. EDT on July 8. “The team gets into the mode of ‘This is launch countdown,’ and that’s really the focus that everybody has,” says NASA test director Jeremy Graeber. “To do it one more time is a great feeling.”
By demonstrating a robotic capability to refuel satellites not designed for on-orbit servicing, NASA hopes to use the final flight of the space shuttle to help launch a new industry in the U.S. intended to extend the operational lifetimes of geosynchronous spacecraft.
CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA managers have cleared space shuttle Atlantis for launch on the 135th and final flight in the 30-year-old shuttle program, a 12-day cargo resupply mission considered critical to International Space Station operations. Liftoff is targeted for 11:26 a.m. EDT July 8. If weather or technical issues prohibit launch, NASA could make a second attempt on July 9 or July 10, before having to stand down for a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket carrying an Air Force Block IIF Global Positioning System satellite on July 14.
