More on the XCOR-Midland deal

Today’s Midland Reporter-Telegram has more details about the agreement between XCOR Aerospace and the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) that will be formally announced Monday. It confirms earlier reports that the deal will involve XCOR moving its corporate headquarters to Midland and establishing an R&D center there, while maintaining its facility in Mojave, California, as well […]

XCOR may be taking off for Texas [updated]

XCOR and its Lynx suborbital vehicle (above) may soon be taking off for Midland, Texas, but a source says they won’t be leaving Mojave behind. (credit: XCOR Aerospace)

According to media reports, Mojave, California-based XCOR Aerospace plans to establish operations in Midland, Texas, with an agreement about a deal with Midland officials scheduled for […]

Armadillo and XCOR updates from Houston

Thursday night SpaceUp Houston hosted a Commercial Spaceflight Panel featuring representatives of a number of orbital and suborbital spaceflight companies. The four companies working on orbital systems—ATK, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX—largely provided reviews of their recent work under funded or unfunded Commercial Crew Development agreements with NASA that have generally been reported elsewhere. The […]

EZ-Rider

As a small, entrepreneurial space company, XCOR Aerospace has found innovative ways to test and demonstrate its technology. One of its best-known examples was the EZ-Rocket, a Long-EZ plane fitted with twin rocket engines built by XCOR. The company announced this week that it did something similar, using another mode of transportation to test […]

Suborbital vehicle development updates from Space Access ’12

On Friday three of the companies actively developing commercial suborbital vehicles—Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, and XCOR Aerospace—gave presentations about their companies’ vehicle development work at the Space Access ’12 conference in Phoenix. Since it’s only been a month and a half since these companies, plus Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic (who are not presenting […]

Suborbital company announcements and other developments at NSRC

A big focus on Monday’s sessions of the 2012 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Palo Alto, California, was on the progress that five companies—Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace—are making on the vehicles that can carry the research payloads, and perhaps even the researchers themselves, in the near future. […]

NSRC Day 2 highlights: payload integration and researcher training

The second day of the the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Orlando focused more closely on the types of scientific research (biomedical, microgravity science, astronomy, etc.) that can be performed on commercial suborbital reusable vehicles and the issues associated with carrying out this research. One key topic is integrating payloads into vehicles. With a wide […]

NSRC Day 1 highlights: suborbital research customers, prizes, and vehicle developments

Monday was the first day of the the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. This conference, the second of its kind, is designed to bring together suborbital vehicle developers and the research community, an emerging market for commercial suborbital reusable vehicles. The conference has attracted more than 300 […]

Highlights from ISPCS day 2

The International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico, wrapped up yesterday with another series of panels after an opening keynote by NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver. In her speech, Garver talked about the importance of the recent passage of the NASA authorization bill, which, while not everything the administration wanted, […]

Space Adventures returns to suborbital spaceflight

Eric Anderson (left) and John Carmack talk about their suborbital partnership at ISDC on Thursday.

As expected, Space Adventures announced Thursday at the International Space Development Conference, (ISDC) in Chicago its partnership with Armadillo Aerospace to provide suborbital space tourism flights. Armadillo will develop a vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) suborbital vehicle carrying people […]