Private space race tightens in Mojave

Wednesday, May 13 2015 06:42 PM

BY STEVEN MAYER

The Bakersfield Californian

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo isn't the only space plane being built in eastern Kern County.

Even as Virgin's timeline to fly its first paying customers to suborbital space has been seriously delayed by the company's fatal accident last fall, Mojave-based XCOR Aerospace has continued to develop its own suborbital launch system.

Now the company's Lynx Mark I spacecraft, a horizontal takeoff and horizontal landing vehicle, has reached another milestone, XCOR said in a news release.

The sleek two-seater is being assembled at XCOR's Hangar 61 at Mojave Air and Space Port, about 60 miles east of Bakersfield. There, engineers and technicians have bonded the strakes -- an aerodynamic surface used to improve the flight characteristics of an aircraft -- to the plane's fuselage.

It's a critical step in development, XCOR President and Chief Executive Jay Gibson said in the release.

This "marks another solid milestone in our progress toward first flight," Gibson said, "clearing the path for a series of important moments that will accelerate Lynx development."

The strakes make up a large portion of the Lynx aerodynamic shell. Each strake is partitioned into four independent fuel tanks that are pressurized during flight and supply kerosene to the Lynx engines, XCOR said. Each strake also houses a main landing gear assembly and two reaction control thrusters that the Lynx will use to make attitude adjustments while outside of the atmosphere.

With the strakes now bonded to Lynx, the company is one step closer to entering the commercial reusable launch vehicle market. The vehicle is designed to take humans and commercial or scientific payloads on a half-hour suborbital flight to the edge of space, to an altitude of 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles.

Like a conventional aircraft, it is designed to return safely to a runway landing.

"We have an open path toward the integration of a number of subsystems, and this means we will now start electrical wiring, plumbing, installing the control system, and populating the landing gear bays," said XCOR's Chief Technology Officer Jeff Greason.

Could Virgin Galactic's tragic, Halloween day mishap -- which resulted in the death of co-pilot Mike Alsbury and the destruction of Virgin's rocket plane -- be another company's chance to pull ahead in the commercial space race?

Neither company has said it's concerned about being first, at least not publicly. The dream of private space flight and the continuing development of the industry is the ultimate goal.

In the meantime, Virgin reports it is making steady progress on the construction of its second SpaceShipTwo vehicle, also in Mojave.

Whichever firm becomes the first to send paying astronauts on a suborbital thrill ride, one thing seems sure: The race to space is happening right here in Kern County.

http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x506927551/Private-space-race-tightens-in-Mojave