XCOR Aerospace

XCOR Aerospace

Type	Private
Industry	Aerospace and space tourism
Founded	September 1999
Headquarters	Mojave Spaceport
Key people	Jeff Greason (President and Co-Founder)
Products	suborbital spaceflight
Revenue	n/a
Website	XCOR Aerospace

XCOR Aerospace is an American 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 its 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 2005 Oshkosh Airshow.^[4]
• Rocket Racer - The EZ-Rocket program led to a second rocketplane design for the Rocket Racing League. It was built on a Velocity SE airframe and later became known as the Mark-I X-Racer. It was powered by an XCOR regeneratively-cooled and pump-fed XR-4K14 rocket engine.^[5] This rocket-powered aircraft flew several demonstration flights at the 2008 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh air show.^[6] The total thrust for the single-engine Mark-I X-Racer has been variously reported as 1,500 lbf (6,700 N)^[5] to 1,800 lbf (8,000 N),^[7] approximately twice that of the EZ-Rocket initial prototype. 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.^{[8][dead link]}

• The Lynx, capable of carrying a pilot and a passenger or payload on sub-orbital spaceflights over 100 km. 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.^[9] The Lynx supersedes a previous design, the Xerus spaceplane.^{[citation needed]} The Lynx was initially announced on March 26, 2008, with plans for an operational vehicle within two years.^[9] That date has since slipped to early 2012.^[10] The Mark II would fly nine to eighteen months afterwards depending on how fast the prototype moves through the test program.^[9]

• 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^[11] by February 25, 2009.^{[citation needed]}
• LOX-methane rocket engines in testing in 2005.^[12]

• Early LOX-methane work led to a NASA contract, jointly with ATK, to develop a 7,500 lbf (33,000 N) 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.^[13]

• 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.^[14]

XCOR/ULA liquid-hydrogen, upper-stage engine development project

In March 2011, United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced they had entered into a joint-development contract with XCOR for a flight-ready, 25,000 to 30,000 pounds-force (110,000–130,000 N) cryogenic LH2/LOX upper-stage rocket engine. Partially as a result of positive results achieved from an earlier (2010) effort to develop a new aluminum alloy engine nozzle using innovative manufacturing techniques, ULA believes the new engine technology will shave several hundred pounds of weight from the large engine and will "lead to significantly lower-cost and more-capable commercial and US government space flights."^[15]

The "multi-year project’s main objective is to produce a flight-ready LOX/LH2 upper-stage engine in the 25,000 to 30,000 lbf (110 to 130 kN)-thrust class that costs significantly less to produce and is easier to operate and integrate than competing engine technologies" ^[16]

"The demonstrations announced [on March 22, 2011] are from integrated engine/nozzle test firings with XCOR’s Lynx 5K18 LOX/kerosene engine. The engine/nozzle combination demonstrates the ability of the aluminum nozzle to withstand the high temperatures of rocket-engine exhaust over numerous tests, with no discernable degradation of the material properties of the alloys. The tests validated the design, materials and manufacturing processes used in the nozzle, and laid a foundation for scaling the design to EELV-sized engines."^[17]

The length of the development program will depend on "the level of investment as milestones are met in the build-a-little, test-a-little approach favored by XCOR." If investment is minimized, flight engines would not be available, as of March 2011^[update], for five to ten years.^[16]

See also

• RL10 — a competitive, workhorse upper-stage engine to the XCOR/ULA large upper-stage engine now under development
• Rocket mail
• X Prize Cup

References

1. ^ Pappalardo, Jeff (July 2008). "New Area 51: Mojave's Desert Outpost Holds Space Flight's Future". Popular Mechanics. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4273921.html?page=1. Retrieved 2008-07-24. 
2. ^ ^{a b} [1]
3. ^ XCOR Aerospace Company Overview, accessed 2009-02-19
4. ^ "XCOR To Fly EZ-Rocket At X Prize Cup Countdown", Space Daily, August 19, 2005, accessed February 19, 2009
5. ^ ^{a b} Products Overview, XCOR Aerospace, undated, accessed 2010-12-27. "Twin 400 lb-thrust XR-4A3 engines aboard the EZ-Rocket" (with in-flight photograph) ... "Another engine that we have developed in parallel is the XR-4K14, ... a 1,500 lb thrust regeneratively cooled LOX and pump-fed kerosene system ... used as the Rocket Racer aircraft's main engine."
6. ^ XCOR X-Racer, by Nancy Atkinson, Universe Today, 2009-08-06, accessed 2010-04-26.
7. ^ X-Racers, Start Your Rockets! : The creators of the X prize offer a sensational vision of rocket-powered airplanes speeding through the sky. But can their new racing league steal a bit of Nascar's thunder?, Michael Belfiore, Popular Science (feature cover story), 2006-02-15, accessed 2010-09-02.
8. ^ Gatlin, Allison (2008-07-11). "XCOR performance tested". Antelope Valley Press. http://www.avpress.com/n/11/0711_s5.hts. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 
9. ^ ^{a b c} "XCOR Aerospace announces new suborbital vehicle "Lynx" to fly within two years". XCOR Aerospace. http://www.xcor.com/press-releases/2008/08-03-26_Lynx_suborbital_vehicle.html. 
10. ^ "Countdown has begin for SXC" (in English). Space Expedition Curacao. 2011-04-12. http://spaceexperiencecuracao.com/blog/press-release-april-12-2011/. Retrieved 17 April 2011. "Early next year, we will make the first sub-orbital flight, after which the final development will speed up tremendously. According to our schedule, we will be ready for commercial take-off by the end of 2013" 
11. ^ "XCOR Aerospace - 15 lb-thrust nitrous oxide / ethane rocket engine". XCOR Aerospace. http://xcor.com/products/engines/2P1_N2O_ethane_rocket_engine.html. 
12. ^ "XCOR Aerospace Completes Successful Development of Methane Rocket Engine". XCOR Aerospace. http://xcor.com/press-releases/2005/05-08-30_XCOR_completes_methane_rocket_engine.html. 
13. ^ "XCOR Aerospace Begins Test Firing of Methane Rocket Engine". XCOR Aerospace. http://www.xcor.com/press-releases/2007/07-01-16_XCOR_begins_methane_engine_testing.html. 
14. ^ "XCOR Aerospace: Cyro Compatible Fluoropolymer Composite Material". XCOR Aerospace. http://www.xcor.com/products/cryo_compatable_composites.html. 
15. ^ "XCOR and ULA Demonstrate Revolutionary Rocket Engine Nozzle Technology — also sign contract for Liquid Hydrogen Engine Development". ULA. 2011-03-17. http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/pages/News.shtml#/68/. Retrieved 2011-03-23. 
16. ^ ^{a b} Morring, Frank, Jr. (2011-03-23). "ULA, XCOR to Develop Upper-Stage Engine". Aviation Week. http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/awx/2011/03/22/awx_03_22_2011_p0-299850.xml&headline=ULA,%20XCOR%20to%20Develop%20Upper-Stage%20Engine&channel=space. Retrieved 2011-03-25. "United Launch Alliance (ULA) and XCOR Aerospace are planning a joint effort to develop a low-cost upper-stage engine in the same class as the venerable RL-10, using technology XCOR is developing for its planned Lynx suborbital spaceplane. The two companies have been testing actively cooled aluminum nozzles XCOR is developing for its liquid oxygen/kerosene 5K18 engine for the Lynx, a reusable two-seat piloted vehicle the company plans to use for commercial research and tourist flights." 
17. ^ "XCOR and ULA Demonstrate Revolutionary Rocket Engine Nozzle Technology; Also Sign Contract for Liquid Hydrogen Engine Development". press release. XCOR Aerospace. 2011-03-22. http://xcor.com/press-releases/2011/11-03-22_XCOR_and_ULA_demonstrate_rocket_engine_nozzle.html. Retrieved 2011-03-25. 

External links

• XCOR Aerospace
• Rocket Racing League
• RocketShip Tours