MOJAVE, Calif., Dec. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The XCOR Lynx® suborbital spacecraft continues to make rapid progress towards final assembly. Immediately after bonding the cockpit to the fuselage the shop crews set up for the delicate and precise operation of bonding the carry-through spar on to the rear end of the Lynx fuselage.
"The carry-through spar is the heart of the loading structure on any winged craft – it supports the primary load of the wings and carries that load through the fuselage," says XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. "Attaching the spar on a composite vehicle is a one-way operation, so it has to be done right the first time.
"We're really excited to have achieved this step. It paves the way for the strakes to be attached as the next step. Thanks to the hard work of the composites crew, we're proceeding at a very rapid pace toward first flight."
To correctly locate the spar, the Lynx rocket truss was temporarily removed from its own test stand and placed on the vehicle itself for the first time, an exciting moment in and of itself. After a lot of prep work for both the fuselage and the spar, composites technicians spent several days carefully aligning the spar to ensure perfect symmetry, then began to bond it in place.
"This was our Thanksgiving present," says XCOR composites shop manager Jeff Smith. "We applied the final glue layers on Wednesday just before the holiday, and removed the support equipment over the weekend. We're looking forward to the next big step, integration of the wing strakes onto the Lynx."
After the spar was installed, the entire structure, from front to back, was load-tested to the equivalent of 6G re-entry, while in the test area the cabin was pressurized to 11 PSI, the first pressure test after being bonded to the fuselage.
About Lynx:
The Lynx is a two-seat, piloted space transport vehicle that will take humans and payloads on a half-hour suborbital flight to 100 km (330,000 feet) and then return safely to a landing at the takeoff runway. It is the only fully reusable suborbital spacecraft in production.
The XCOR Lynx development photos can be downloaded from XCOR's website at www.xcor.com/pressimages.
About XCOR Aerospace: XCOR Aerospace® is based in Mojave, California. It is currently creating a Research and Development Center in Midland, Texas, and will be establishing an operational and manufacturing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the assistance of Space Florida.
XCOR builds safer, more reliable and reusable rocket-powered vehicles, propulsion systems, advanced non-flammable composites and rocket piston pumps. XCOR works with aerospace prime contractors and government customers on major propulsion systems while also building the XCOR Lynx.
Lynx is a piloted, two-seat, fully reusable liquid rocket-powered spacecraft that takes off and lands horizontally. The Lynx family of vehicles serves three primary missions: research and scientific missions and private spaceflight in the Lynx Mark I and Lynx Mark II, and micro satellite launch on the Lynx Mark III. Lynx production models (designated Lynx Mark II) are designed to be robust, multi-mission (research/scientific or private spaceflight) commercial vehicles capable of flying to 100+ km in altitude, up to four times per day. Lynx production models are available to customers in the free world on a wet-lease basis for their own manned space flight programs. Learn more at www.xcor.com.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141218/165332
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141218/165331
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SOURCE XCOR Aerospace
