Contact:
Douglas Graham
XCOR Aerospace
Phone (661) 824-4714 x138
Fax (661) 824-0866
email
Press Release
XCOR logs 2,000th engine run

13,482 seconds cumulative run time
The XCOR XR4K5 LOX-kerosene engine

December 04, 2003:  XCOR Aerospace passed a significant milestone recently when it logged its 2,000th rocket engine firing. This is the total of the five types of engines the company has designed and built in-house. Cumulative run time is 224.7 minutes, or 13,482 seconds as rocket scientists like to measure run time. Igniter-only operations are not counted in this tally; just engine runs with both igniter and main stage components. About 2600 additional igniter tests have been performed in development, life testing, and preflight checkouts.

In all these 2,000 runs, XCOR has yet to experience an engine explosion or hard start. While we are optimistic that we have designed out the causes of engine explosions, we never run without a blast shield surrounding the engine.

You can always view an up-to-date breakdown of the current engine run time statistics on our engine page at http://www.xcor.com/engines.html.  As of this announcement, the engine run times are as follows:

- Historical Engine statistics - (here for current)
as of Thursday, December 04, 2003:

The XCOR type XR4A3 400 lbf regen-cooled LOX-alcohol engines have run:

Engine

Runs

Time (secs)

Time (Minutes)

Engine 1

191

2387

39.8 minutes

Engine 2

64

801

13.4 minutes

Engine 3

170

2240

37.3 minutes

Engine 4

133

1006

16.8 minutes

Total

558

6434

107.2 minutes

The XCOR type XR3A2 160 lbf LOX-alcohol engine has run:

Runs

Time (secs)

Time (Minutes)

61

124

2.1 minutes

The XCOR type XR3B4 50 lbf regen cooled N2O-alcohol engine has run:

Runs

Time (secs)

Time (Minutes)

216

812

13.5 minutes


The XCOR type XR2P1 15 lbf N2O-ethane engine (the "Tea Cart" engine) has run:

Runs

Time (secs)

Time (Minutes)

1163

6099

101.7 minutes

(includes operation on nitrous oxide and gaseous oxygen oxidizers with propane, ethane, alcohol, and kerosene fuels)

The XCOR type XR4K5 1800 lbf LOX-Kerosene engine has run:

Runs

Time (secs)

Time (Minutes)

11

13

0.2 minutes

GRAND TOTAL

Runs

Time (secs)

Time (Minutes)

2,009

13482

224.7 minutes

XCOR Aerospace is a California corporation located in Mojave, California. The company is in the business of developing and producing safe, reliable and reusable rocket engines, rocket propulsion systems, and rocket powered vehicles.

###