XCOR Aerospace

XCOR Aerospace is a private rocket engine and spaceflight development company based at the Mojave Spaceport in Mojave, California.^[1] XCOR was formed by former members of the Rotary Rocket rocket engine development team in September, 1999. XCOR is headed by Jeff Greason who is the CEO.^[2][3]

Key people

Jeff Greason, Dan DeLong, Aleta Jackson and Doug Jones previously worked at the failed Rotary Rocket company.^[2]

Projects

The prototype Rocket Racer, a modified Velocity SE climbing to 10,000 feet on it first full flight, October 29, 2007 at the Mojave Spaceport

The Rocket Racer on landing roll-out at Mojave.

Aft view of the Rocket Racer on landing roll-out at Mojave.

Projects have included:

• EZ-Rocket, a Rutan Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft fitted with two 400 lbf (1.8 kN) thrust rocket engines replacing the normal propeller engine. EZ-Rocket has been flown at numerous airshows including the Oshkosh Airshow.^[4]
• Rocket Racer - The EZ-Rocket program led to the rocket plane design for the Rocket Racing League. This consists of a modified Velocity SE with a 1500lbf LOX-kerosene engine. The engine uses pressure-fed LOX and pump-fed kerosene, a combination that allows the fuel to be stored in the airplane's wing tanks while avoiding potential complications with pumping liquid oxygen.^[5]
• The Lynx, capable of carrying a pilot and a passenger or payload on flights to 65 km by 2010. Between 20 and 50 test flights of Lynx are planned, along with numerous static engine firings on the ground. A full step-by-step set of taxi tests, runway hops and full-up flights are planned to get the vehicle to a state of operational readiness. Lynx is envisaged to be roughly the size of a small private airplane. It would be capable of flying several times a day making use of reusable, non-toxic engines to help keep the space plane's operating costs low.^[6] The Lynx supersedes a previous design, the Xerus spaceplane.
• Tea cart engine, a 15 lbf (67 N) thrust rocket motor burning nitrous oxide and ethane, mounted on a small industrial cart. The tea cart engine has repeatedly been fired indoors at conferences and demonstrations and had accumulated over 1,837 firings and 9,039 seconds of run time by February 25th, 2009. ^[7]
• LOX-methane rocket engines in testing in 2005.
• Early LOX-methane work led to a NASA contract, jointly with ATK, to develop a 7500 lbf engine for potential use as the CEV lunar return engine. On January 16, 2007 XCOR announced the successful test firing of a preliminary "workhorse" version of this engine.^[8]
• XCOR has developed Nonburnite (tm), a cryo-compatible, inherently non-combustible composite material based on a thermoplastic fluoropolymer resin. Low coefficient of thermal expansion and inherent resistance to microcracking make it well suited to cryogenic tank use and also part of vehicle structure.^[9]

Notes

See also

• Personal Spaceflight Federation
• Ansari X Prize
• X Prize Cup
• Rocket mail

v • d • e Space tourism (see list of private spaceflight companies) Major private companies Bigelow Aerospace · EADS Astrium · Mojave Aerospace Ventures · Rocketplane Kistler · Space Adventures · SpaceX · Scaled Composites · Virgin Galactic Organizations ARCASPACE · Astronaute Club Européen · LiftPort Group · Commercial Spaceflight Federation · Space Tourism Society · Association of Autonomous Astronauts · Space Frontier Foundation Successful spacecraft SpaceShipOne · Genesis I · Genesis II Living in space Space station · Space habitat · Space colonization · Commercialization of space · Suborbital spaceplane · Space currency Major Space competitions Ansari X Prize · Google Lunar X Prize · America's Space Prize · N-Prize · Centennial Challenges (Elevator:2010 & MoonROx)

External links

• XCOR Aerospace
• Rocket Racing League