The story
Founded by Jeff Greason on Sep 1999.1
History
The company was founded in Mojave, California in 1999 by Jeff Greason, Dan DeLong, Aleta Jackson and Doug Jones
who had previously worked at the Rotary Rocket company.
In 2001, XCOR designed and built EZ-Rocket, the first privately built and flown rocket-powered airplane. EZ-Rocket made its maiden flight in July 2001.
XCOR moved its development and manufacturing operations to Midland, Texas from July 2012 to 2015. The company uses the Mojave Air and Space port primarily to conduct test flights.
In 2015, XCOR attracted investment from Chinese venture firm Haiyin Capital, valuing the company at $140 million.
From 1999 to 2015, Jeff Greason served as CEO. In mid-2015, John "Jay" Gibson succeeded Greason as CEO. Later that year three of the co-founders, Jeff Greason, Dan DeLong and Aleta Jackson, left the company to found Agile Aero, an aerospace company focused on rapid development and prototyping of aerodynamic spacecraft.
In May 2016, the company halted development of the Lynx spaceplane and pivoted company focus toward development its LOX/LH2 engine technology, particularly on a funded project for United Launch Alliance. The company laid off more than 20 people of the 50–60 persons onboard prior to May.
By the end of June 2017, CEO Gibson left the company, and the company laid off all remaining employees, hiring about half back on a contract basis. The company filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in November 2017.
Read the full text
Historical projects
Completed projects have included:
EZ-Rocket, a Rutan Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft fitted with two XR-4A3 400 pounds-force (1.8 kN) thrust rocket engines replacing the normal propeller engine. EZ-Rocket has been flown at numerous airshows including the 2005 Countdown to X Prize Cup and the 2002 Oshkosh Airshow. EZ-Rocket was "the first rocket-powered aircraft built and flown by a non-governmental entity". On 3 December 2005, XCOR Aerospace flew its EZ-Rocket from Mojave, California to California City, California, both in Kern County. Test pilot Dick Rutan made the flight, which lasted about 9 minutes and carried US mail from the post office in Mojave to addresses in California City. This was the first time that a crewed, rocket-powered aircraft was used to carry U.S. Mail.
Rocket Racer - The EZ-Rocket program led to a second rocketplane design for the Rocket Racing League. It was built on a Velocity SE airframe and later became known as the Mark-I X-Racer. It was powered by an XCOR regeneratively cooled and pump-fed XR-4K14 rocket engine. This rocket-powered aircraft flew several demonstration flights at the 2008 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh air show. The total thrust for the single-engine Mark-I X-Racer has been variously reported as 1,500 lbf (6,700 N) to 1,800 lbf (8,000 N), approximately twice that of the EZ-Rocket initial prototype. The engine uses pressure-fed LOX and pump-fed kerosene, a combination that allows the fuel to be stored in the airplane's wing tanks while avoiding potential complications with pumping liquid oxygen. After flight testing of the X-Racer was completed in 2008, XCOR completed seven rocketplane flights in one day.
Tea cart engine, a 15 lbf (67 N) thrust rocket motor burning nitrous oxide and ethane, mounted on a small industrial cart. The tea cart engine has repeatedly been fired indoors at conferences and demonstrations and had accumulated over 1,837 firings and 9,039 seconds of run time by February 25, 2009.
LOX/methane rocket engines in testing in 2005.
Early LOX/methane work led to a NASA contract, jointly with ATK, to develop a 7,500 lbf (33,000 N) engine for potential use as the CEV lunar return engine. On January 16, 2007 XCOR announced the successful test firing of a preliminary "workhorse" version of this engine.
History
The Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) was founded by Harry van Hulten and Lt-Gen (ret.) Ben Droste in 2008. Initially operating under a wet-lease agreement with XCOR Aerospace, it was acquired by XCOR Aerospace in June 2014 and was a fully owned subsidiary. Michiel Mol and Maarten Elshove joined SXC in 2010 and are thus considered founders. After the acquisition by XCOR Aerospace SXC was rebranded as XCOR Space Expeditions and integrated into the XCOR brand. XCOR Aerospace was organized as part of XCOR Corporate, but operated as the center of XCOR.
From Wikipedia’s article on XCOR Aerospace, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4