XCOR and the Lynx rocket

[mheney]

I don't beleive the Mk 1 vehicle will get to 100 km - although I do believe they will break the 50 mile line. 

[jongoff]

What are the chances Xcor will make it to 100km altitude before Virgin Galactic II?

The Lynx Mk I is only designed for ~65km altitude IIRC, so they'd have to get it into flight, and get their MkII designed, built, and flying...I have a high opinion of XCOR, but I'm pretty sure SS2 will be flying to 100km before then.

~Jon

[Lars_J]

What are the chances Xcor will make it to 100km altitude before Virgin Galactic II?

Very, very slim. At least VG is flying real hardware, even though they are having propulsion issues - But XCOR has yet to reveal their vehicle, and they are not making any schedule proclamations at all. For all we know they are a year or more away from first flight. (and as Jon notes, that's only their 1st gen vehicle - it is the 2nd gen one that might reach 100km)

[Robotbeat]

What are the chances Xcor will make it to 100km altitude before Virgin Galactic II?

Very slim. At least VG is flying real hardware, even though they are having propulsion issues - But XCOR has yet to reveal their vehicle, and they are not making any schedule proclamations at all. For all we know they are a year or more away from first flight.

No, they mentioned they want to do their first flight this year, so less than a year away.

...The lack of big schedule proclamations is a /good thing/, in my opinion. They're keeping their heads down and working hard.

[Lars_J]

What are the chances Xcor will make it to 100km altitude before Virgin Galactic II?

Very slim. At least VG is flying real hardware, even though they are having propulsion issues - But XCOR has yet to reveal their vehicle, and they are not making any schedule proclamations at all. For all we know they are a year or more away from first flight.

No, they mentioned they want to do their first flight this year, so less than a year away.

...The lack of big schedule proclamations is a /good thing/, in my opinion. They're keeping their heads down and working hard.

Haven't they been about a year from first flight for a while now?

[jongoff]

What are the chances Xcor will make it to 100km altitude before Virgin Galactic II?

Very slim. At least VG is flying real hardware, even though they are having propulsion issues - But XCOR has yet to reveal their vehicle, and they are not making any schedule proclamations at all. For all we know they are a year or more away from first flight.

No, they mentioned they want to do their first flight this year, so less than a year away.

...The lack of big schedule proclamations is a /good thing/, in my opinion. They're keeping their heads down and working hard.

Haven't they been about a year from first flight for a while now?

They actually have mentioned the goals of flying "this year" in previous years, so it's fair to exercise some skepticism. Me personally, I'll be stoked if they get off the ground this year. But they have a solid team, with real money, and have flown previous lower performance vehicles, so I give them good chances for success, just uncertain on the timing.

~Jon

[parabolicarc]

I don't beleive the Mk 1 vehicle will get to 100 km - although I do believe they will break the 50 mile line.

The Lynx Mark I can't reach the 50 mile boundary. The Lynx Mark II is target at 62 miles and above. The company has always been clear on these goals.

The first Lynx is being assembled in the hangar. Parts of it have been coming in. Harry van Hulten, the founder of the SXC group that is selling tickets, spoke at the Griffith Observatory on Monday. The schedule he showed indicated initial flight tests in the third quarter, which would be this summer. He admitted that could slip depending upon how things go. One big item is the cockpit, which he showed a picture of undergoing its build at the contractor. It's getting close to being shipped to Mojave.

The schedule matters somewhat less to XCOR than it does to VG. XCOR doesn't have a famous billionaire making predictions every few months and then changing them when they don't come true.

Who gets to 62 miles first is an interesting question. Virgin Galactic can't get there with anything its flown with or the modified engine it plans to fly with later this year. Who's first to 100 km matters a great deal to Virgin. It matters much less to XCOR. Jeff Greason doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about what the neighbors are doing. He's focused on getting the first Lynx built and tested properly.

XCOR is in good shape financially. They closed on a $13 million Series B round at the end of 2013. That round is actually seeking $20 million, and it remains open I think til August. So, they might raise more money by then. 

[QuantumG]

The blog has an interview with Jeff Greason, CEO.

http://www.xcor.com/blog/jeffgreason1/

Sounds like a great place to work.

[jongoff]

The first Lynx is being assembled in the hangar. Parts of it have been coming in. Harry van Hulten, the founder of the SXC group that is selling tickets, spoke at the Griffith Observatory on Monday. The schedule he showed indicated initial flight tests in the third quarter, which would be this summer. He admitted that could slip depending upon how things go. One big item is the cockpit, which he showed a picture of undergoing its build at the contractor. It's getting close to being shipped to Mojave.

Yeah, I happened to see their cockpit earlier this month--we're looking at using the same contractor for some composite design/fabrication work we'll be doing at Altius, and they gave us a tour of their shop. It's a pretty amazingly complex design, but it was looking really close to done. If that's the last structural piece they need in-house before they can jump into structural integration, plumbing, and wiring, they might just get Lynx in the air this year. It'll be tight though. A friend from Scaled said their rule of thumb was that from the time that you have something that looks like the airplane in the shop until it's ready to fly can often be closer to a year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

XCOR is in good shape financially. They closed on a $13 million Series B round at the end of 2013. That round is actually seeking $20 million, and it remains open I think til August. So, they might raise more money by then.

It's really impressive what XCOR has accomplished for ~1/10th what VG has had. I'm friends with a lot of VG guys and want to see them succeed too, but really want XCOR to also make it--they've earned it.

~Jon

[jongoff]

The blog has an interview with Jeff Greason, CEO.

http://www.xcor.com/blog/jeffgreason1/

Sounds like a great place to work.

Agreed that was a great interview. I particularly liked some of his thoughts on where the market will go. I think he's dead-on that we'll see a mix of bigger expendable or semi-reusable launchers, but with most of the mass being lifted by smaller fully-reusable launchers. I like his vision of the future a whole lot more than some of the speculation I've seen about SpaceX's super-duper heavy lift vehicles/MCT (hope that comment doesn't cost me my SpaceX amazing people membership).

~Jon

[Lars_J]

The blog has an interview with Jeff Greason, CEO.

http://www.xcor.com/blog/jeffgreason1/

Sounds like a great place to work.

Agreed that was a great interview. I particularly liked some of his thoughts on where the market will go. I think he's dead-on that we'll see a mix of bigger expendable or semi-reusable launchers, but with most of the mass being lifted by smaller fully-reusable launchers. I like his vision of the future a whole lot more than some of the speculation I've seen about SpaceX's super-duper heavy lift vehicles/MCT (hope that comment doesn't cost me my SpaceX amazing people membership).

Membership revoked!   

On a more serious note - It would be nice to find out exactly what fully reusable orbital systems he has in mind. Even the Mark III will apparently use an expendable stage for LEO insertion.

So given the lack of details, I'm somewhat sceptical about these smaller fully reusable launch systems. With a larger LV you have more mass to work with to add things needed for recovery/reuse, and these small systems will have *very* tight margins, unless I'm mistaken about what size vehicle he is imagining. For example, if SpaceX can make a fully reusable F9R with at least 3-5mt payload to LEO, is a smaller air launched system going to be able to beat that for $/kg to LEO?

My point, I suppose, is that it seems to *me* that the sweet spot for a RLV size (payload vs flight rate) would be a bit bigger than what it seems like he has in mind.

I'm anxiously waiting to see what they have planned, though.

[QuantumG]

For example, if SpaceX can make a fully reusable F9R with at least 3-5mt payload to LEO

I think that's what he means by small. At least that order anyway.

[Lars_J]

For example, if SpaceX can make a fully reusable F9R with at least 3-5mt payload to LEO

I think that's what he means by small. At least that order anyway.

You may be right, but that kind of payload would still require a launch system that is an order of magnitude larger than the Lynx Mark III. (If the concepts that show a Lynx launching a satellite is the Mark III)

So while he may see himself as a part of that coming market, they need to scale up BIGTIME to be able to do it.

[Robotbeat]

I assume you guys have actually seen what Jeff Greason is thinking about when it comes to fully orbital reusable launch vehicles. He's not thinking of anything close to the Lynx  mark III in scale.

http://xcor.com/products/vehicles/frequent_flyer_and_teledyne_brown_spaceplane.html

They're thinking of a 2 stage to orbit reusable launch vehicle. Horizontal take-off, horizontal landing. The upper stage aircraft will be about the size of Lynx, I presume, but the first stage will be much, much larger (on the order of the Shuttle Orbiter). They will use hydrogen/oxygen as propellants. Greason mentioned them in a talk a while ago.

[baldusi]

Wise development are done at  the smallest possible scale. Better learn about rocket reusability small than large. All the system lessons and operative experience will teach them how to design the bigger version.

[jongoff]

On a more serious note - It would be nice to find out exactly what fully reusable orbital systems he has in mind. Even the Mark III will apparently use an expendable stage for LEO insertion.

Two points:

1- When he talks about a future where most of the payload is delivered to space in small fully-reusable systems, he's not saying that all of those would be XCOR's fully-reusable systems. I'm sure he fully intends for XCOR to be a major player, but Jeff's always been an advocate for healthy industries with multiple strong players. He's not a monoculturist like the many of the cult-of-SLS/Orion or the cult-of-Elon. Back when I was still at Masten, XCOR several times bent over backwards to help us, even though we were technically competitors. I'm with Jeff that a strong industry with multiple healthy players using different approaches is a really, really good thing.

2- XCOR does have some TSTO RLV ideas in mind, and they've given some limited details (ie I'm pretty sure both stages will be piloted HTHL, possibly airlaunched, with the upper stage being LOX/LH2), but they're too early to really be worth them opening the kimono too far.

So given the lack of details, I'm somewhat sceptical about these smaller fully reusable launch systems. With a larger LV you have more mass to work with to add things needed for recovery/reuse, and these small systems will have *very* tight margins, unless I'm mistaken about what size vehicle he is imagining. For example, if SpaceX can make a fully reusable F9R with at least 3-5mt payload to LEO, is a smaller air launched system going to be able to beat that for $/kg to LEO?

A lot depends upon the flight rate and the turnaround time. There are diseconomies of scale as well as economies. I'm perfectly willing to believe that F9R will eventually work, and will be cheaper by a good margin than expendable vehicles. But will it ever get to fast enough turn-around to really be "gas and go"? I doubt it.

My point, I suppose, is that it seems to *me* that the sweet spot for a RLV size (payload vs flight rate) would be a bit bigger than what it seems like he has in mind.

I'm sure there's a lot of room for disagreement here, but I'm with Jeff. In order to get to a high enough flight rate to enable a good industry with at least 2-3 good players, each with multiple vehicles, you're talking about needing several hundred flights per year. I don't think you're going to get there with F9R. But who knows. We'll see.

I'm anxiously waiting to see what they have planned, though.

You and me both.

~Jon

[jongoff]

Wise development are done at  the smallest possible scale. Better learn about rocket reusability small than large. All the system lessons and operative experience will teach them how to design the bigger version.

Yeah, I think that Jeff's approach to reusability is a lot more likely to yield high-flight rate, gas-and-go reuse than Elon's. Though Elon seems to have found a great approach to get into basic reusability starting from an expendable vehicle.

~Jon

[jongoff]

For example, if SpaceX can make a fully reusable F9R with at least 3-5mt payload to LEO

I think that's what he means by small. At least that order anyway.

Actually, from previous conversations with Jeff, my guess is quite a bit smaller than that. When I last had a chance to chat with him on the topic, I think the numbers were closer to vehicles with one pilot and 300-1000lb of cargo (or 1-2 passengers).

~Jon

[Lars_J]

For example, if SpaceX can make a fully reusable F9R with at least 3-5mt payload to LEO

I think that's what he means by small. At least that order anyway.

Actually, from previous conversations with Jeff, my guess is quite a bit smaller than that. When I last had a chance to chat with him on the topic, I think the numbers were closer to vehicles with one pilot and 300-1000lb of cargo (or 1-2 passengers).

~Jon

Is it that much different? If a pilot will always be there, the pressurized cabin and life support for 1-3 people will surely mass a bit over a metric ton. Any piloted orbital space plane probably needs a dry mass of several metric tonnes. While not technically part of the cargo mass, that mass still has to be put in LEO.

[Robotbeat]

XCOR has done a lot of work on how to design a rocket engine that experiences essentially no wear while in use, so that it could conceivably be used thousands of times, and many, many times between extensive examination and/or refurb.