Space Fizz

Congratulations to Thomas Goodwin for winning XCOR's NSRC-2012 sweepstakes for a free ride on the suborbital Lynx platform.  We reported the competition earlier this year, and were eagerly anticipating the draw at the NSRC convention this week.  His name was randomly drawn on Monday at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Palo Alto California.

Goodwin is a physiology and bio-engineering researcher with NASA's Johnson Space Center.  Space.com reports that Thomas Goodwin might not be able to take the suborbital trip.  "I'm not sure I can accept this," Goodwin said, referencing his status as a government employee, which may prevent him from using the prize. "I'm very surprised."

XCOR did draw an alternate name just in case the primary winner was not able to accept.  XCOR drew the winning ticket from a pool of conference attendees who registered for NSRC in advanced.

The prize is valued at $95,000.00.  That is the same price that XCOR plans to charge when the Lynx platform begins flying in the near future.  Aside from thrill-riding space tourists, XCOR also plans on offering research and scientific space on it's suborbital launches.

Photo Credit: XCOR.com

As the private sector ambitiously pursues earth orbit and beyond.  Here's a look at the last 50 years of human spaceflight.  Thanks to Space.com for the great infographic.

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

27 February 2012, Mojave, CA and Palo Alto, CA: At the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) 2012 in Palo Alto, California, XCOR Aerospace announced that EMXYS of Spain, Texas A&M’s Space Engineering Research Center, and the Planetary Science Institute have joined XCOR’s payload processing sales channel for the Lynx suborbital vehicle. The new members of the XCOR team will provide services to the research, scientific, educational, engineering, and medical markets that are using the XCOR Lynx suborbital reusable launch vehicle for experiments and investigations.

They join XCOR’s existing payload integration channel partners including: the Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio and Boulder, NanoRacks of Washington DC, Spaceflight Services of Tukwila, Washington, Space Expedition Curacao, Yecheon Astro Space Center of South Korea, Cosmica of France, and African Space Institute in South Africa.

Each payload integration specialist firm will help facilitate and provision flight services on the Lynx by ensuring that end users understand the packaging, environmental, safety, operational flight profile(s) and interface (physical, electrical and data) requirements of the Lynx for both automated experiments not requiring user intervention during flight, and those experiments when the scientist accompanies the payload to the edge of space. The integrators will provide a variety of additional value added services depending on their individual service offering and customer needs, including, but not limited to fabrication, test and qualification of experiments for the Lynx environment.The payload integrators will sell Lynx research flight services and assist in creating standardization in research hardware for the suborbital market. “We are very excited to have assembled this incredibly capable team of payload integrators to service the worldwide suborbital research market,” said Andrew Nelson, XCOR Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for Business Development, “and we will be adding to this capable team in the coming months and years.”

While the big boys like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have been getting all the headlines lately, they aren’t the only players in the commercialized race for space.  XCOR Aerospace of Mojave California have been somewhat of a dark horse in this race; and they’ve recently has been making a break for the lead in the sub-orbital market.  Humbly self-described as a “small” company, this operation is on the verge of achieving what some many others are attempting: affordable space flight for private citizens. 

Based out of the Mojave Air and Space Port, XCOR has been developing and testing their rocket designs since 2001.  They have completed an impressive total of 67 flights with their various rocket crafts, and are poised to go commercial with their reusable launch vehicle (RLV) Lynx.