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. — Fresh on the heels of shuttle Discovery’s return from its final spaceflight, shuttle Endeavour reached the launch pad on March 11 for preparations to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station during the STS-134 mission. The launch, scheduled for 7:48 p.m. EDT on April 19, will be the 25th and last flight of OV-105, the replacement orbiter for Challenger that first flew in 1992.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Three months after the U.S. Air Force’s experimental Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) returned from a debut spaceflight that spanned 224 days, its sister ship is being prepared for liftoff March 4 on a follow-on mission. Like its predecessor, OTV-2 will launch aboard an Atlas V booster from Cape Canaveral AFS. The 2-hr. launch window opens at 3:39 p.m. EST.
Southwest Research Institute, a Texas-based non-profit research and development organization, has signed contracts with two aspiring commercial suborbital spacecraft companies to fly researchers and experiments.
