XCOR Aerospace’s multi-talented Lynx spaceplane set for KSC

[Chris Bergin]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/08/xcor-aerospaces-lynx-spaceplane-ksc/

Recent announcement provided the opportunity to write a baseline article for this vehicle, via a very cool L2 presentation.

[Longhorn John]

Thanks for writing that up! Nice little vehicle.

[fatjohn1408]

Good, I have big expectations for XCOR.

One thing I don't understand is why they coast 16 km before jettisoning their stage out of the dorsal pod. A huge waste in gravity losses if you ask me.

[Chris Bergin]

Thanks for writing that up! Nice little vehicle.

Sure thing John, thanks!

[john smith 19]

Xcor have been in the game nearly as long as Reaction Engines, a group they share some interests with. Like them they have continued to pursue the goal they started with and are closing in on it. Lynx is a lovely craft and should be very practical as they work toward their end game.

An excellent article but the details on the the engine don't sound quite right.

Expanders use the heat picked up cooling the thrust chamber and nozzle by a cryogenic propellant to drive the propellant pumps. That's *very* unlikely to happen with RP1 as the coolant. Should be feasible with LO2  as chamber and/or nozzle coolant (and Doug Jones and his team have that experience).

Xcor have done work on both piston pumps (the Rocket Racing League vehicles) and expansion cycles (for Boeing as an RL10 alternative) but I'm not sure how closely they have combined them using LO2 rather than LH2.

2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year in commercial space.

[Robotbeat]

Xcor have been in the game nearly as long as Reaction Engines, a group they share some interests with. Like them they have continued to pursue the goal they started with and are closing in on it. Lynx is a lovely craft and should be very practical as they work toward their end game.

An excellent article but the details on the the engine don't sound quite right.

Expanders use the heat picked up cooling the thrust chamber and nozzle by a cryogenic propellant to drive the propellant pumps. That's *very* unlikely to happen with RP1 as the coolant. Should be feasible with LO2  as chamber and/or nozzle coolant (and Doug Jones and his team have that experience).

Xcor have done work on both piston pumps (the Rocket Racing League vehicles) and expansion cycles (for Boeing as an RL10 alternative) but I'm not sure how closely they have combined them using LO2 rather than LH2.

2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year in commercial space.

Just FYI, it's a non-standard engine cycle:

XCOR’s proprietary piston pumps can pump like  turbopumps but are able to stop and start quickly.  They are also less expensive. A benefit of a piston-style design is that the pump is capable of pumping more fuel at a higher operational speed. Using this innovative pump design, drive gas to operate the pumps can be delivered by any of the three classical methods: staged combustion, gas generator, or expander. We have chosen a fourth, however, which is a proprietary thermodynamic cycle that is most similar to the expander. XCOR has patented this cycle, which has the advantage of not lowering the engine specific impulse, as a gas generator would.

http://www.xcor.com/products/pumps/index.html

[john smith 19]

Just FYI, it's a non-standard engine cycle:

I'd read this but had forgotten.

The link Jon Goff linked to on the ULA Integrated Fluids Vehicle may give some clues. It uses a 6 cylinder oil cooled internal combustion engine to boil both LH2 and LO2 for storage in a set of tanks to pressurize the attitude thrusters and supply pneumatic power.

Boeing say Xcorp were key partners in demonstrating small fast acting piston pumps could get the job done.

With this in mind an obvious guess would be to use the heat from the RP1 cooling circuit (or part of it) to drive a closed circuit inert gas loop to allow *safe* driving of both pump sets. This would be in line with Xcorps rule that it takes 2 leaks to cause a situation where different combustible fluids could mix, and would allow throttling and mixture ratio control by controlling the gas flow (which should allow *much* faster flow control than controlling the propellant flows directly).

[Ronsmytheiii]

Sorry for the late congratulations Chris, but excellent article.  Most news outlets cover the sub-orbital tourism portion of Xcor, but this article extensively covers the r&D possibilities which excite me much more.

Xcor is starting to impress me more and more every day.  They are really developing a robust business case that uses multiple synergetic areas of operation (sub-orbital tourism, R&D and hopefully eventual component supplier to ULA, suborbital research platform, and nano-satellite launcher)

At this rate, can easily see them passing Virgin Galactic in company diversity and revenue.  cheap suborbital research and nanosat launcher for corporations and universities could be a huge industry, and considering the fact that the first stage is just a normal suborbital production craft with a specialized dorsal section significantly reduces the fixed price thanks to economies of scale.

Plus, the hydrogen second stage can definitely utilize the ULA R&D efforts reducing upfront investment, and recurring costs if ULA uses an Xcor engine for a new u/s.

[QuantumG]

Do you mean suborbital tourism?

[robertross]

Very well put together Chris. I took the time to try and get up to speed on their design & objectives with that.

The thought of 152 new jobs in the KSC area is encourraging, even if it's a drop in the well, and over 5 years. Better than nothing.

[JohnFornaro]

Plus:  Check out the "fleet".  Already more than one built.  Are they going for reusability, or what?  Thanks for the update, Chris.

[baldusi]

The thing that I still don't quite understand is if all the cargo should be human rated. For example, to load a combustion experiment, will they ask to have a certification against catastrophic failures that could endanger the life of the pilot?

[Robotbeat]

Plus:  Check out the "fleet".  Already more than one built.  Are they going for reusability, or what?  Thanks for the update, Chris.

They are selling/leasing them to other folk who will use them as often as they wish.

[Comga]

Plus:  Check out the "fleet".  Already more than one built.  Are they going for reusability, or what?  Thanks for the update, Chris.

To what "fleet" are you referring?
Surely not the image in the article, which is an illustration of a bunch of DreamChasers.

[Chris Bergin]

Citizens in Space Announces Payload Manifest for First Space Mission

DALLAS, Aug. 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Citizens in Space, a project of the United States Rocket Academy, has announced a list of 10 experiments selected for its first research mission on the XCOR Aerospace Lynx spacecraft.

The experiments will be carried aboard the Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, an open-source payload carrier developed for the Lynx spacecraft by Citizens in Space. Experiments will be controlled in flight by a Citizens in Space science-mission-specialist astronaut. 

The experiments announced today cover a wide range of subjects from microgravity crystallization to plant growth, antimicrobial materials for space habitats, and the interaction of water with lunar surface materials. The experimenters are equally diverse.

"Mission One includes citizen scientists working at every level, from high school to professional research labs," said Dr. Justin Karl, Chief Payloads Officer for Citizens in Space.

The mission announced today is one of ten flights purchased by Citizens in Space. "Citizens in Space is making these flight opportunities available at no cost to citizen scientists," Dr. Karl said. "In return, citizen scientists pledge to make their experiment designs and data openly available to the entire community. Our goal is to create a huge catalog of flight-proven experiments that future researchers can draw from.

"As science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein once said, 'You can't pay it back. You have to pay it forward.'"

The experiments announced today are:

Angelicvm Aerospace Foundation of Santiago, Chile. Crystallization Rates in Microgravity.

Bishop Planetarium at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, Florida. Microgravity Water Electrolysis Optimization.

CD-SEAS of Honolulu, Hawaii. Effectiveness of Anti-Microbial Coatings in Microgravity Conditions.

Florida International University of Miami, Florida. Regolith Compression Mechanics in Reduced- and Micro-Gravity.

Flightsafety Makers of Columbus, Ohio. Characterization of Local Inertial Loading and Comparison with Avionics Data.

Syncleus of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Realtime Payload Conditions Monitoring.

NewSpace Farm LLC of Seattle, Washington. Microgravity Botany Pod Hardware Evaluation..

The Pinkowski Group of Montrose, Pennsylvania. Concentration Gradient Equalization Rates.

Terran Sciences Group of Orlando, Florida. Inter-Payload Heat Transfer Characterization.

Texas Southern University of Houston, Texas. Non-Fick Diffusion in Microgravity.

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Hydrophobic Coating Effectiveness for Space Applications.

University High School of Orlando, Florida. Investigation of Regolith Hydration in Zero Gravity.

Citizens in Space is continuing its call for experiments. Details are available online at http://www.citizensinspace.org/call-for-experiments/. Questions and letters of intent can be submitted to Dr. Justin Karl by emailing [email protected]. 


SOURCE United States Rocket Academy

[CameronD]

The mission announced today is one of ten flights purchased by Citizens in Space. "Citizens in Space is making these flight opportunities available at no cost to citizen scientists," Dr. Karl said. "In return, citizen scientists pledge to make their experiment designs and data openly available to the entire community. Our goal is to create a huge catalog of flight-proven experiments that future researchers can draw from.

Although I'm sure it will one day, they're certainly getting mighty excited over a vehicle that has yet to leave the ground. 

{Sound of crickets chirping}

[Robert Thompson]

Think of measurable achievement as the Airy disk. And good press as everything outside that.