NASA depends more and more on commercial space technology vendors: XCOR Aerospace announced marked progress on the path to commercial space flight with the integration of the cockpit to the fuselage on XCOR‘s Lynx® spacecraft. With the fuselage, pressure cabin and strakes delivered, XCOR is bonding these structures together and integrating sub-assemblies, such as the landing gear, at its hangar in Mojave.'
“The team at XCOR has been working a long time to reach this goal,” said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “We always knew there would be a day when we could see a spacecraft forming in our hangar. Today is that day. These pictures show our ongoing journey to make commercial space flight a reality.”
Futhermore, Lynx’s rocket propulsion system continues to be tested on a first generation fuselage that is used to perform cold-flows and hot fires with XCOR’s proprietary rocket propellant piston pump technology.
“After 15 years of development, the excitement in the hangar is palpable,” said XCOR President Andrew Nelson. “Teams are working in parallel to finish Lynx. We are hiring shop staff and engineers to prepare for the final stretch leading up to test flights. I’m proud of what the team has accomplished this year.”
What is Lynx?
XCOR's Lynx is a two-seat, piloted space transport vehicle that will take humans and payloads on a half-hour suborbital flight to 100 km (330,000 feet) and then return safely to a landing at the takeoff runway. It is the only fully reusable suborbital spacecraft in production.
The XCOR Lynx development photos can be downloaded from XCOR’s website at www.xcor.com.
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