I paid my first visit to XCOR since last summer. The shop floor in their hanger at the Mojave Air & Space Port was much more crowded with test articles and equipment than the last time I visited. They are about to get a lot busier over the next year as the company makes a push to build the Lynx Mark 1 test vehicle.
The most striking new element I noticed was the vehicle duck-billed nose, which has been attached to the engineering model. Most of the nose is there; the final version will extend out another two feet or so.
The cockpit and controls have become much better defined since last year. This is a full-scale engineering model of the cockpit; the actual flight hardware will be built out of much more advanced materials.
The above photo of the engineering model shows the vehicle from back looking forward into the cockpit. This is the exact length of the vehicle, whose wings extend out to the left and right of the picture.
There is a sign there which reads, “Yes! In fact, this IS rocket science.”
Above is the first production engine. Lynx will be powered by four of these propulsion units.
And a cool sign on the shop floor.
The only things I wasn’t able to take pictures of are the three metal wind tunnel models that XCOR will use to make small modifications to the design. These are small models that you can hold in their hands, but they are key to a very sophisticated space plane.
Editor’s Note: I edited the original post to clarify that these photos are of the engineering model, which has been fitted with part of the composite nose. The cockpit is not flight hardware.
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Thanks, Doug. It’s posts like this that make your blog great.
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is this garage-built “hobby spacecraft” sponsorized by Black & Decker?
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Gaetano, this is FAR from a “hobby” craft. You do realize you are looking at the engineering model, right?
Very cool – great to see these ‘behind the scenes’ images!
honestly, Doug, might you fly on it with confidence?
Gaetano, how does your engineering education compare with that of Jeff Greason, to allow you to make statements like that?
The very first time? Probably not. No one here is a test pilot.
After a proper test program? Show me the seat, baby. That’s why we test anything. To develop confidence. To work out the bugs. (oh, and some people are afraid to fly aboard *anything,* but that problem’s not with the plane)
But then, I would say *precisely the same thing* about any other commercial (which this is), military or general aviation flying machine that’s ever been developed and flown. I would have been reluctant to even be on the Boeing 787 on that heavily-publicized first flight, even though I may find myself being a passenger at some future time. Just having the Boeing (or Airbus or Lockheed-Martin) name on it, doesn’t give them a free pass to me. Show me that it, whoever built ‘it,’ works a few times, first.
What spacecraft (suborbital or otherwise) with no performance record, would *you* ride the very first time out, Gaetano? Orion or CST-100, for which only engineering models also exist at this time?
Has any info been released on the engines? How powerful etc.? Who builds them?
XCOR builds the engines.
http://www.xcor.com/products/engines/5K18_LOX-kerosene_rocket_engine.html
They have a variety of engines, all designed and built in-house. Go to the xcor.com site, and the Products tab for more information.
I love them. cockpits awesome!