Xcor_aerospace

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

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.
• 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.
• Sphinx, the second rocket plane design to receive an FAA suborbital rocket license (the aircraft has not been built to date).
• 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 1,100 firings and 6,000 seconds of run time by the end of 2003.
• 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.

XCOR Aerospace Begins Test Firing of Methane Rocket Engine. XCOR Aerospace.

• XCOR has plans to develop Xerus, a reusable suborbital spaceplane for tourist and scientific payload applications. The vehicle will be the minimum feasible size -- one pilot plus one passenger -- in order to keep development and capital costs down.
• 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.

References

See also

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

v • d • e Space tourism
Major private companies	Bigelow Aerospace · Blue Origin · EADS Astrium · Rocketplane · Space Adventures · Scaled Composites · The Spaceship Company · Virgin Galactic
Organizations	ARCASPACE · LiftPort Group · Personal Spaceflight Federation · Space Tourism Society · Association of Autonomous Astronauts
Successful spacecraft	SpaceShipOne · Genesis I · Genesis II
Living in space	Space station · Space habitat · Space colonization · Commercialization of space · Suborbital spaceplane
Historical events	First tourists · Ansari X Prize

External links

• XCOR Aerospace
• Rocket Racing League

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