First Powered Flight of SpaceShipTwo!

I got in to work early yesterday because Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic were planning the first powered flight of SpaceShipTwo and I wanted to be there to see it. The flight was a complete success! They did a 15 second burn on their hybrid engine and reached supersonic flight.

My coworkers had written down Scaled's frequencies and were listening in on their communications during the flight. It made for a wonderful narration for the video.

All those years of tracking model rocket flights paid off and I took a rather nice shot of the drop and ignition, all the way from nearly 50,000 feet:

I snapped this shot just as one of the chase planes was crossing the moon:

The entire video of the flight:



A big congratulations to Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic, and everyone in the New Space Industry for this awesome achievement!

XCOR to Open New Operations/Manufacturing Facility in Florida

XCOR Aerospace announced Thursday that it would be establishing a new base at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for manufacturing and testing of the company's Lynx suborbital spacecraft. Good news for me, this means as many as 150 new jobs through 2018. I *should* be graduated by then... XCOR is one of my favorite private aerospace companies, right up there with SpaceX even though they are a fraction of the size. They prove to the world that small companies can do big, amazing things with the right focus and drive.

The KSC is a very exciting place to drop an aerospace company. As CEO Jeff Greason said in the press release, "Looking over the KSC Visitor Complex grounds and seeing the history of U.S. human spaceflight and realizing that soon XCOR will be a part of the fabric of the Space Coast is very exciting to me personally and our company." XCOR Chief Operating Officer Andrew Nelson pointed out, "The Space Coast as seen a slow wind down of legacy space operations in the past few years, but the new commercial space industry will return high paying aerospace jobs and human spaceflight back to Florida in the very near future, with several scheduled flights a day! We foresee significant positive impacts on the creation of technology clusters and educational opportunities for K-12 and college students."

I look forward to seeing where this company ends up in a decade from now. Heck, I'm looking forward to seeing where I end up in a decade from now, and maybe it will be with XCOR. You just never know.

XCOR LYNX Mk.1 Suborbital Launch Vehicle

This is precisely the sort of thing I want to be building when I get older and augment more resources! XCOR Aerospace is a private aerospace company (apart from government) which is building a suborbital launch vehicle for the growing market of space-tourism. Sort of like Virgin Galactic, but frankly I like this one better:

(Click the flight profile to enlarge it)