We are excited to announce the most recent major milestone in our Lynx engine program, truly a part of aviation and space history: a 67-second fully pump-fed firing of our XR-5K18 rocket engine (and the first firing of a full piston pump-powered rocket engine in history).

For details, do read the release. Here we will just say that we believe this is leading toward a new era of fully reusable and reliable spacecraft.

XCOR CEO Jeff Greason inspects the Lynx main engine after a hotfire test while Chief Test Engineer Doug Jones looks on.

As the Lynx engine program continues to evolve we anticipate that the net result will be a dramatic reduction in per-flight costs and turnaround time, and that it will lead to a serious increase in affordable and routine spaceflight.

And with pumps as powerful as turbines but as reliable as automotive engines, today’s news on the 5K18 program is one more step toward the goal of true reusability and reliability.

We hope you join us.

Shock diamonds are visible during a test of the Lynx main engine. The diamonds are an interaction between supersonic gasses escaping from the engine and the pressure of earth’s atmosphere.

Jeremy Voigt prepares to test fire the Lynx main engine at XCOR’s test site on the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, CA

Governor Perry Highlights XCOR in State of the State

Full text of the Governor’s speech can be found here, and Governor Perry’s remarks related to XCOR are found at the 7-minute mark:

“And just last June, Texas took another giant leap into commercial space, as XCOR Aerospace, a leader in the privatized space race, brought its research and development center to Midland.

They’re part of a growing Texas presence in this important market, which includes businesses like SpaceX and Blue Origin.”

Giant leap indeed.

Here are a few of our favorites, starting with XCOR Chief Operating Officer Andrew Nelson at Huffington Post Live back on January 9:

Our favorite were the brilliant string of questions from Zac and Mitch, especially Zac’s mind-blowing question “How did gravity, like, form?” at 8:40 (and beyond).

So how did gravity form? Let us know in the comments how you’d describe it about in 25 words or less….

“In the other corner, a scrappy band of rocket engineers at XCOR Aerospace.”

Peter Elkind of Fortune published a very compelling piece on the future of commercial space here in Mojave.  Keeper quote as usual comes from Jeff Greason: “We are not an industry that can ship beta.”

There is also a nice online sidebar with XCOR Chief Test Pilot Rick Searfoss.

Marketplace also did a nice segment on the Unilever deal, and we could not agree more that commercial space and these types of marketing excursions can only help to open the space frontier.  This campaign is only the beginning.  Stay tuned for more!