A California aerospace company plans to enter the space tourism industry with a two-seat rocket ship capable of suborbital flights to altitudes more than 59.5km above the Earth.
The Lynx, about the size of a small private plane, is expected to begin flying in 2010, said developer Xcor Aerospace, which planned to release details of the design at a news conference yesterday.
The company also said that, pending the outcome of negotiations, the Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded it a research contract to develop and test features of the Lynx. No details were released.
Xcor's announcement comes two months after aerospace designer Burt Rutan and billionaire Richard Branson unveiled a model of SpaceShipTwo, which is being built for Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism company and may begin test flights this year.
Xcor intends to be a spaceship builder, with another company operating the Lynx and setting prices.
The Lynx is designed to take off from a runway like a normal plane, reach a top speed of Mach 2 and an altitude of 60,960m, then descend in a circling glide to a runway landing.
Shaped something like a bulked-up version of the Rutan-designed Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft, its wings will be located toward the rear of the fuselage, with vertical winglets at the tips.
Powered by clean-burning, fully reuseable, liquid-fuel engines, the Lynx is expected to be capable of making several flights a day, Xcor said.
"We have designed this vehicle to operate much like a commercial aircraft," Xcor Chief Executive Officer Jeff Greason said in a statement.
Greason said the Lynx will provide affordable access to space for individuals and researchers, and future versions will offer improved capabilities for research and commercial uses.
Xcor has spent nine years developing rocket engines in a facility down the flightline from Rutan's Scaled Composites LLC at the Mojave Airport north of Los Angeles. It has built and flown two rocket-powered aircraft.
SpaceShipTwo is being developed on the success of Spaceship One, which in 2004 became the first privately funded, manned rocket to reach space, making three flights to altitudes between 100km and 111km and winning the US$10 million Ansari X Prize.
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