William Atkins
Sunday, 30 March 2008 21:24
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
Beginning in 2010, the California-based company expects to transport paying customers into a 38-mile suborbital flight to experience weightlessness and “to see the stars above and the Earth and its atmosphere below.”
XCOR Aerospace is a privately owned rocket engine and spaceflight development company. Headquartered at the Mojave Spaceport (Mojave, California), the company originated in 1999 primarily by
Jeff Greason (short pdf file).
The size of a small private airplane, the
Lynx rocket plane will carry one pilot and one passenger on suborbital flights. Between now and 2010 the company will ground-test its engine and flight-test the vehicle dozens of times.
The Lynx, about the size of a private executive business jet, has a 24.2-foot (7.4-meter) wingspan and is 27.9-foot (8.5-meter) in length. It will weigh between 2,700 and 3,000 pounds (1,225 and 1,360 kilograms) while taxing down the runway.
Once operational, the company plans making several flights each day (two at first, and four when completely operational) with four reusable engines that burn a combination of liquid oxygen and kerosene propellant.
The space plane takes off from a runway, like an airplane, and will quickly tilt ubruptly upward to a near-vertical ascent profile. Eventually, it will attain a speed of Mach 2, two times the speed of sound, or about 1,540 miles per hour (2,460 kilometer per hour), or just under one-half mile per second.
At this point, about three minutes into the flight, the engines will shut down. Then, at the top of its flight trajectory, the passengers will experience about 1.5 to 2 minutes of weightlessness.
Then, during a 20-minute descent and re-entry, in which the craft will glide back to Earth like the NASA space shuttle, occupants will experience around four Gs, or four times the force of gravity. The entire trip will be about thirty minutes long.
On the company’s
website , Greason states:
“We have designed this vehicle to operate much like a commercial aircraft. Its liquid fuel engines will provide the enhanced safety, durability, reliability and maintainability that keep operating costs low. These engines will also minimize the impact of these flights on the environment.”
He adds, “
They are fully reusable, burn cleanly, and release fewer particulates than solid fuel or hybrid rocket motors.”
Additional specifics on the company follow on page two. Find out what the company's test pilot, a former NASA astronaut, says about the feeling of 4 Gs.
