XCOR против Pratt&Whitney

[avmich]

А вот интересно - СпейсЭкс не купит ли XCOR? Кто как думает?

[Salo]

XCOR Aerospace Announces Latest Milestone in ULA Program             
                Posted
by Doug Messier
on November 20, 2014, at 8:24 am
in News
                          

XCOR's XR-5H25 engine during its successful hot fire. The plume is clear because the propellant used is liquid hydrogen. (Credit: XCOR/Mike Massee)
 
Mojave, CA, November 20, 2014 (XCOR PR) — XCOR Aerospace today announced it has completed the latest test series for the liquid hydrogen engine it is developing for United Launch Alliance (ULA). This is an important milestone in the long-running LH2 (liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen) program. It is also a step toward running the engine in a fully closed cycle mode.
In its most recent milestone, XCOR successfully performed hot fire testing of the XR-5H25 engine's regeneratively cooled thrust chamber,with both liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants supplied inpump-fed mode, using XCOR's proprietary piston pump technology.
"This test marks the first time liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen have been supplied to a rocket engine with a piston pump," says XCOR Chief Executive Officer Jeff Greason. "It is also the first time an American LH2 engine of this size has successfully fired liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen together in pump-fed mode. We are happy to be making solid progress on the engines. This will also bring us to a new phase in our plans for orbital flight.
"ULA has an ongoing effort to develop rocket engines for our next generation upper stage, and we are thrilled to see that progress continuing with XCOR," added ULA Vice President George Sowers.
Upcoming test series will fully integrate the nozzle with the engine and piston pumps. Fully closed cycle testing will follow soon afterwards and will complete the sub-scale demonstration engine program.
The XR-5H25 engines are being developed under contract to ULA as potential successors to the Delta and Atlas series upper stage engines currently used. These engines will also help power orbital launches.

About XCOR Aerospace:  XCOR Aerospace® is based in Mojave, California.  It is currently starting to create a new Research and Development Center in Midland, Texas, and an operational and manufacturing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. XCOR® builds safe, reliable and reusable rocket-powered vehicles, propulsion systems, advanced non-flammable composites and rocket piston pumps. XCOR works with aerospace prime contractors and government customers on major propulsion systems, while also building Lynx®.  Lynx is a piloted, two-seat, fully reusable liquid rocket-powered vehicle that takes-off and lands horizontally. The Lynx-family of vehicles serves three primary missions depending on their specific type including: research & scientific missions, private spaceflight, and micro satellite launch (only on Lynx Mark III). Lynx production models (designated Lynx Mark II) are designed to be robust, multi-mission (research / scientific or private spaceflight) commercial vehicles capable of flying to 100+ km in altitude up to four times per day. Lynx vehicles are available to customers in the free world on a wet lease basis to start their own manned space flight program. For more information on XCOR Aerospace, visit www.xcor.com or follow us on Facebook,  Twitter or //Instagram as XCOR.

About United Launch Alliance: With more than a century of combined heritage, United Launch Alliance is the nation's most experienced and reliable launch service provider. ULA has successfully delivered more than 85 satellites to orbit that provide critical capabilities for troops in the field, aid meteorologists in tracking severe weather, enable personal device-based GPS navigation and unlock the mysteries of our solar system. For more information on ULA, visit the ULA website at www.ulalaunch.com, or call the ULA Launch Hotline at 1-877-ULA-4321 (852-4321). Join the conversation at  www.facebook.com/ulalaunch, twitter.com/ulalaunch and instagram.com/ulalaunch.

[avmich]

[Salo]

Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  43 мин.43 минуты назад  
In a related note, I noticed XCOR is no longer on the agenda for this week's #NSRC2016 suborbital research meeting: http://bit.ly/1Y162PF 
 
  Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  48 мин.48 минут назад  
Gibson: "this effort will ensure that XCOR is better positioned to finish the Lynx Project in a more efficient, reliable and safer manner."
 
  Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  48 мин.48 минут назад  
XCOR's Jay Gibson: "Based on the immediate engine opportunities presented to us, we decided we needed to fully focus on the LH2 program".
 
  Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  50 мин.50 минут назад  
XCOR confirms to me that they've laid off staff "to focus the majority of its resources on the final development" of a LOX/LH2 engine.

[Apollo13]

Lynx все?

[Salo]

После ухода основателей компании видимо да.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/xcor-lays-off-employees-to-focus-on-engine-development/

XCOR lays off employees to focus on engine development
by Jeff Foust — May 31, 2016
 
XCOR Aerospace is putting work on the Lynx suborbital spaceplane on hold as it devotes its resources to a new rocket engine for United Launch Alliance. Credit: XCOR Aerospace  
 
WASHINGTON — XCOR Aerospace, a company best known for attempting to build a reusable suborbital spaceplane, has laid off a significant fraction of its workforce to focus its resources instead on development of a rocket engine.
Randy Baker, chief operating officer for XCOR, told SpaceNews May 31 that the company laid off a number of employees at its facilities in both Mojave, California, and Midland, Texas on May 27. Baker declined to state how many employees were laid off, but other reports, including comments by former employees on social media, indicated that about two dozen people lost their jobs at a company that, prior to the layoffs, had about 50 to 60 employees.
Baker said that the company was concentrating its resources to develop a liquid hydrogen engine under a contract with United Launch Alliance announced in March. That, in effect, puts development of the company's Lynx suborbital spaceplane on hold.
"Following recent breakthroughs in the effort of developing safer, cost-effective, sustainable, reliable and instantly reusable rocket engines for XCOR's Lynx and other launchers, XCOR Aerospace has decided to focus the majority of its resources on the final development of the revolutionary liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen (LH2) program," he said.
ULA is interested in the engine, designated the 8H21 by XCOR, for potential use in the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage, a new upper stage it plans to develop for its Vulcan launch vehicle that would replace the Centaur currently used on the Atlas 5 and on initial versions of Vulcan. ULA is also considering the BE-3U engine developed by Blue Origin, as well as the RL10 engine from Aerojet Rocketdyne currently used on the Centaur.
"Based on the immediate engine opportunities presented to us, we decided we needed to fully focus on the LH2 program for the forthcoming period," Jay Gibson, president and chief executive of XCOR, said in a statement. "Given that we remain a small-scale company, we are planning to place more emphasis on fine-tuning the hydrogen engine program to achieve an optimal closed loop system for cryogenic rocket engines."
The new focus on the LH2 engine is the latest in a series of changes at XCOR, a company that had worked for more than a decade on suborbital spaceplane concepts, but appeared recently to be focusing more on engine development. Last March, Gibson became president and chief executive, succeeding company co-founder Jeff Greason, who became chief technology officer. Greason and two other co-founders left XCOR last November to start an aerospace vehicle design company.
The company also made changes to its board of directors in March, removing Greason and Stephen Fleming, an early investor in XCOR. Among the company's new board members were Michael Gass, the former president and chief executive of ULA; and Tom Burbage, the former general manager of the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin.
Lynx is a two-seat vehicle designed to take off from a runway under rocket power and make a brief suborbital flight before gliding back to a runway landing. Work on the vehicle was running far behind the company's earlier schedules, in part because of challenges developing the vehicle's carbon composite structure.
Speaking at the Space Access '16 conference in Phoenix on April 8, Doug Jones, chief test engineer and the last of the company's co-founders still at XCOR, suggested a "money problem" was delaying work on the Lynx's wings, the last major vehicle component yet to be delivered for a prototype known as the Mark 1. He did not elaborate on the funding issue.
Jones declined at the time to give an estimate of when Lynx Mark 1 test flights would begin. "'Light under the gear' all depends on how our schedule moves forward," he said. "I just don't know at this point because there are too many imponderables in the way. We move as fast as we can move."
In the May 31 statement, Gibson indicated XCOR was not abandoning the Lynx. "We are convinced that this effort will ensure that XCOR is better positioned to finish the Lynx Project in a more efficient, reliable and safer manner," he said of XCOR's decision to focus on the engine.
The company, though, is taking other steps to deemphasize the Lynx. XCOR was originally scheduled to discuss its vehicle development plans during a June 2 panel session at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Broomfield, Colorado. An version of the conference agenda available on the conference website May 31 no longer lists XCOR as participating on that panel.

[avmich]

Надо посмотреть, чем основатели XCOR теперь будут заниматься . Может быть, если XCOR решил закрыть Lynx, новая компания вернётся к проекту...

[Apollo13]

XCOR все.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/07/05/xcor-lays-remaining-employees/

XCOR Lays off Remaining Employees
 July 5, 2017  Doug Messier  News  6 Comments

Lynx engine hot fire. (Credit: XCOR)

Struggling XCOR Aerospace has laid off its remaining employees in Mojave, Calif. and Midland, Texas.
"Due to adverse financial conditions XCOR had to terminate all employees as of 30 June 2017," the company said in a statement. "XCOR management will retain critical employees on a contract basis to maintain the company's intellectual property and is actively seeking other options that would allow it to resume full employment and activity."
The move follows the news last month that CEO Jay Gibson was leaving the company after President Donald Trump nominated him for a high-level position at the Department of Defense. Gibson left the company at the end of June.

XCOR hired Gibson in March 2015 to replace founder Jeff Greason. The objective was for Gibson to focus on the business side while Greason focused on completing construction on the two-seat Lynx suborbital space plane.
That arrangement did not work out. By November, Greason and two other founders, Dan DeLong and Aleta Jackson, had left the company to found Agile Aerospace.
Greason, DeLong, Jackson and Doug Jones founded the company in 1999 after being laid off from Rotary Rocket.
In May 2016, XCOR laid off about 25 employees — roughly half of its workforce — and suspended work on the Lynx. The company has since refocused its energies on its rocket engine work.
XCOR had been working on an upper stage for United Launch Alliance's Vulcan launch vehicle.


XCOR Lays off Remaining Employees July 5, 2017 Doug Messier News 6 Comments Lynx engine hot fire. (Credit: XCOR) Struggling XCOR Aerospace has laid off its remaining employees in Mojave, Calif. and Midland, Texas. "Due to adverse financial conditions XCOR had to terminate all employees as of 30 June 2017," the company said in a statement. "XCOR management will retain critical employees on a contract basis to maintain the company's intellectual property and is actively seeking other options that would allow it to resume full employment and activity." The move follows the news last month that CEO Jay Gibson was leaving the company after President Donald Trump nominated him for a high-level position at the Department of Defense. Gibson left the company at the end of June. XCOR hired Gibson in March 2015 to replace founder Jeff Greason. The objective was for Gibson to focus on the business side while Greason focused on completing construction on the two-seat Lynx suborbital space plane. That arrangement did not work out. By November, Greason and two other founders, Dan DeLong and Aleta Jackson, had left the company to found Agile Aerospace. Greason, DeLong, Jackson and Doug Jones founded the company in 1999 after being laid off from Rotary Rocket. In May 2016, XCOR laid off about 25 employees — roughly half of its workforce — and suspended work on the Lynx. The company has since refocused its energies on its rocket engine work. XCOR had been working on an upper stage for United Launch Alliance's Vulcan launch vehicle.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/xcor-aerospace-files-for-bankruptcy/

XCOR Aerospace files for bankruptcy
by Jeff Foust — November 9, 2017  

XCOR Aerospace had been working for nearly a decade on the Lynx suborbital spaceplane, but technical and financial issues kept it from completing a prototype. Credit: XCOR Aerospace  
 
WASHINGTON — XCOR Aerospace, a company that for nearly 20 years had been working on rocket engines and a suborbital spaceplane, filed for bankruptcy Nov. 8 after it was unable to line up new investors.
The company filed paperwork with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California, seeking bankruptcy under Chapter 7, which calls for liquidation of the company's assets. XCOR is headquartered in Midland, Texas, with facilities in Mojave, California. The filing was first reported by Parabolic Arc.
The company had, in recent weeks, been trying to line up investors or other partners that could keep the company alive. Michael Blum, a member of the board of directors of XCOR who took over as chief executive at the end of June, said in an Oct. 19 interview that the company had only a few weeks to reach an agreement or it would run out of money.
"By early November, either one of these deals pulls the trigger and saves XCOR, or we file for Chapter 7," he said at the time.
Blum, in a Nov. 9 email to investors and shareholders in the company obtained by SpaceNews, said time ran out on the company's efforts. "Today it is my sad duty to inform you that XCOR has failed," he wrote. "Our effort to find a financial future for XCOR has not succeeded."
Blum said the company had discussions with several potential partners, including one that involved joining a consortium led by a "large aerospace firm" working to develop space access systems in the United Kingdom. Another suitor, discussions with whom started just a couple weeks ago, was interested in XCOR's capabilities but lacked the financial resources needed for a deal.
Blum said that the company's senior secured creditor, not identified in the message, "became difficult to work with, necessitating a bankruptcy filing."
According to its bankruptcy filing, XCOR has more than 100 creditors, although none are identified as the senior secured creditor who reportedly triggered the filing. The creditors listed in the filing include a mix of individuals, companies and government organizations.
XCOR, in its filing, listed estimated assets of between $1 and 10 million, with estimated liabilities of between $10 and 50 million.
XCOR was founded by four former employees of Rotary Rocket Company in 1999 after that company, which was developing a reusable launch vehicle called Roton, changed propulsion systems. XCOR developed a number of engines, including versions flown on a modified Long-EZ airplane called EZ-Rocket.
XCOR is best known in the industry for Lynx, a suborbital spaceplane announced in 2008 designed to carry one pilot and one spaceflight participant. The vehicle was designed to take off from a runway under rocket power and fly a suborbital arc, gliding back to a runway landing.
The company, though, was never able to complete the initial prototype of Lynx. In 2016, the company announced it was laying off approximately half of its employees and shelving work on Lynx to focus on an engine project under a contract with United Launch Alliance.
At the end of June, the company said it was laying off the rest of its employees due to "adverse financial conditions," hiring a few back as contractors. Jay Gibson, the former chief executive of XCOR who left in June when nominated to a Defense Department position, told senators at his July confirmation hearing that a sudden termination of a contract from a larger, but unnamed, company led to those layoffs.
XCOR is not the first suborbital spaceflight company to go out of business. In 2013, John Carmack, the videogame developer who founded Armadillo Aerospace more than a decade earlier, announced the company was in "hibernation mode" after he ran out of money to fund its operations. Armadillo later ceased operations entirely, although many of its former employees now work for Exos Aerospace, another company working on suborbital vehicles.
Blum, in his note, thanked investors and shareholders who "supported XCOR financially and in so many other ways." He also sounded optimistic about the future of the industry in general despite the failure of XCOR itself.
"The advent of entrepreneurial endeavors has led to significant cost reductions in recent years," he wrote. "This trend will continue and with it low cost access to space for humans will arrive. I am certain of this."

[ОАЯ]

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-xcor-astronauts-20181230-story.html
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