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XCOR Marks the Spot

by Steve Bartlett

Take one group of enterprising aerospace engineers, one world-famous pilot, one composite kit plane, and a pair of rocket engines, mix thoroughly in the Mojave desert at over 100 degrees and what do you get? The makings of space excitement, courtesy of XCOR Aerospace.

On March 6, OASIS members toured the facilities of XCOR at the Mojave Airport and learned how this small company plans to take on the suborbital launch market and make space accessible to the general public. Three of the company’s founding members, Dan DeLong, Aleta Jackson, and Doug Jones, showed off their progress to date.

Doug Jones amuses OASIS members with the story of Dick Rutan and the Altitude Chamber. Photo by Steve Bartlett.

Started a few years ago after the demise of the Rotary Rocket Company, XCOR has taken a “build a little/test a little/fly a lot” approach to space development. The company began building small rocket engine ignitors then progressed to a 15-pound “tea cart” portable demonstration engine, and then went on to building and firing larger size engines. But static firings of rocket engines, while interesting to watch, doesn’t attract customers. They needed something different.

So DeLong, Jones, and company decided to take a Long EZ kit airplane, remove the conventional engine and propeller, and replace them with a pair of liquid oxygen/alcohol rocket engines. The completed plane, dubbed the EZ Rocket, was ready to fly. All they lacked was someone to fly it.

Getting a closeup look at XCOR’s EZRocket. Photo by Steve Bartlett.

Through some personal contacts, they brought onboard Dick Rutan, pilot of the famous Voyager globe circling airplane to fly the small rocket-powered craft. Rutan and the XCOR team spent the next several months testing the airplane and engines, both on the ground and in flight, garnering interest from around the world. Aleta Jackson, co-founder of the L5 Society (one of the precursor organizations to the National Space Society) described the trials and tribulations of developing a rocket plane, including their adventures taking the EZ Rocket to the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual expo in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

This group of space professionals is now developing the Xerus rocket plane, designed to carry paying passengers on suborbital hops out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Thus far, they have developed preliminary designs and built scaled-up rocket engines using liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants which will lead to flight hardware.

OASIS members on the tour saw the EZ Rocket, several static test rocket engines and support gear, and the company’s altitude test chamber, as well as a videotape of the test flights of the rocket plane. The local NSS chapter thanks to DeLong, Jackson, and Jones for taking time out of their busy schedules to host the tour.

For more tour pictures, see the Gallery page.