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.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory, assailed earlier this month by the agency’s inspector general for unresolved technical issues and cost overruns, arrived at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Wednesday, a key milestone toward making its November launch window. In a report released June 8, NASA Inspector General Paul Martin expressed concerns that Mars Science Lab managers might be pressured to descope the mission to avoid missing this year’s launch window, which would result in a two-year launch delay to 2013.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The shuttle Atlantis astronauts donned their pressurized flight suits and climbed aboard the orbiter on Thursday to participate in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT), one of the final milestones in advance of launch. The STS-135 mission, a 12-day cargo run to the International Space Station, remains targeted for liftoff at 11:26 a.m. EDT on July 8. The flight is the last in NASA’s 30-year-old space shuttle program.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — This week’s test to verify a modification to space shuttle Atlantis’ fuel tank ended up revealing a leaky valve in one of the shuttle’s main engines, a problem that would have remained latent until launch day, prompting a scrub.
