COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — XCOR Aerospace hopes to make the first flight of its reusable suborbital space vehicle by the end of the 2014, according to a key executive.
XCOR Aerospace COO Andrew Nelson said in late May the company also hopes to be ready for commercial service by the end of 2015. XCOR is developing Lynx, a piloted, two-seat reusable space vehicle designed to take people and payloads on a 30-minute flight up to at least 100 km before returning safely to a horizontal landing on a runway.
“We’re trying to do (first prototype flight) by the end of this year,” Nelson told Defense Daily at the National Space Symposium here. “But if it delays to first quarter (2015), I won’t be too upset. It is aerospace.”
Lynx’s aircraft-like capabilities will allow high tempo operations, XCOR said, including up to four flights per day. Lynx will also feature rapid call-up (ready to fly in two hours) and fast turnaround between flights (ready to fly again in no more than two hours) with low cost operations and maintenance. Nelson said Lynx is selling at $100,000 per flight and that the company has sold a “few hundred” flights already, mainly to government customers and big conglomerates with an interest in doing microgravity research or research in space. NASA describes microgravity as the condition in which people or objects appear to be weightless.
Nelson said XCOR produces two principal product lines: fully reusable rocket engines, which he called XCOR’s core competency, and reusable space vehicles. Instead of turbo pumps traditionally used in rocket engines, which Nelson said wear out in tens of minutes, XCOR develops piston pumps, which wear out in “thousands of hours.” XCOR’s proprietary piston pumps can pump like turbo pumps, but are able to stop and start quickly, according XCOR’s website. A benefit of a piston-style design is that the pump is capable of pumping more fuel at a higher operational speed.
XCOR has planned a Lynx prototype named “Mark I,” a production model called “Mark II” and a cargo/satellite carrier and launcher designated as “Mark III.” Flight of the first Mark II will follow approximately nine to 18 months after Mark I’s first flight test, depending on the prototype’s advancement through the test program. Nelson said Mark III will have an outsized cargo carrying capability on the top of the space vehicle that he said could house a nano satellite launcher, a small space telescope or perhaps a larger and heavier sensor package. This spot can hold mass up to 650 kg.
Lynx has various payload sizes and locations to fit customers’ needs. Nelson said within the cabin is a small payload space behind the pilot that can cost between $15,000 and $20,000 depending on customers’ mission needs. This payload spot runs 45cm x 14cm x 41 cm and can hold mass up to 20 kg. Another cabin payload spot is “right of pilot,” which can hold up to 120 kg in the size of two Space Shuttle mid-deck lockers. Two other small payload spots can hold up to 2 kg per spot and are exposed to vacuum.
Though XCOR has not yet flown any flights with Lynx, Nelson said it has flown 66 powered rocket flights. The company earlier had two rocket powered aircraft called “EZ Rocket” and “X-Racer.” EZ Rocket, Nelson said, was a modified aircraft owned by one of XCOR’s founders who removed the engine and installed a rocket engine. The company, Nelson said, demonstrated that it could build rocket engines that were fully reusable and that XCOR understood aircraft operations integrated with rocket engines.
Nelson said EZ Rocket served as a regulatory pathfinder for the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, which summarized Congress’ view that the goal of safely opening space to the American people and their private commercial, scientific and cultural enterprises should guide federal space investments policies and regulations. Nelson said XCOR had yet to obtain a full-up commercial license approved by the FAA to fly people, but that he expects XCOR to get one as it received one in the past for another vehicle concept.
“We’re very comfortable with the process,” Nelson said. “We don’t see it as a hurdle.”
XCOR has a contract through NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program (FOP), which Nelson characterized as a mini-GSA (General Services Administration) contract or an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract. Nelson said he believed XCOR’s FOP contract was worth about $5 million.
FOP provides an increased opportunity for flight testing by purchasing flight services from emerging, commercial suborbital platform providers and facilitating access to reduced gravity environments, brief periods of weightlessness and high-altitude atmospheric conditions, according to NASA. The following companies also have FOP contracts for either suborbital reusable commercial flight platforms or a high-altitude balloon platform: Armadillo Aerospace, Near Space Corp., Masten Space Systems, UP Aerospace, Virgin Galactic and Whittinghill Aerospace.
XCOR prefers “underutilized” airports with low population density, clear airspace and runway length with about 10,000 feet of runway, Nelson said, because if Lynx needs to make an liftoff abort with full fuel, it needs lots of runway to stop. Nelson said XCOR’s current airport in Mojave, Calif., (also the company’s home) is a good example of what the company desires in an airport. Nelson said an airport in Midland, Texas, is another example of a suitable airport. According to a Feb. 28 entry on XCOR’s blog, the company is working to establish its research and development (R&D)/flight test center in Midland and is working its way through the FAA spaceport licensing process.
Nelson believes reusable space vehicles like Lynx will be a great generator of interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education among young people because of the personal touch they can bring to science experiments. Nelson said Lynx can offer the small payload space behind the pilot at an educational rate for around $1,000.
“When you hook (a middle school student) with a real science experiment that they could go to the airport and watch fly themselves, that could be a real huge hook,” Nelson said. “That is a huge thing that people really miss, when they see these vehicles and they think it’s just for rich people. It’s not.”