Thanks to Michael Mealling, I've got connectivity enough to announce that the FAA presented XCOR with their launch license this morning, at the Space Access Conference. It was the 180th day after completion of their licence application submittal, so they brought it in under the wire.

More later, but further details can be found at Michael's wiki. Up to the minute pictures are also available on the wiki page.

[Update on Sunday evening]

If you haven't seen it, Alan Boyle, who was in attendance with me (and who I greatly enjoyed meeting), has a more extensive story.

Kudos and congratz to XCOR!!!

Huzzah!!!!

Great. I like their concept a lot more than Scaled Composites. They are clearly planning on making this a business, their proposed design is more scalable, and I like their engines a LOT more than Scaled’s hybrid design. I just hope they can get the money to actually build and fly Xerus.

> Great. I like their concept a lot more than Scaled Composites.

I like the fact that there are competing ideas about how to get to space. Competition breeds improvement.

Does anyone know how Armadillo's application fares?

-s

YaY! XCOR WOOT!