The first major piece of structure – the fuselage of the Mk1 version — will be delivered to Xcor the week of 16 January, said Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer and vice president of business development.
Next month, Xcor will tender work packages for building the cockpit pressure vessel and strakes in February, with delivery of the two subassemblies scheduled in April in May, said Khaki Rodway McKee, the Xcor programme manager.
Roll-out of the Mk1 is scheduled in July or August from Xcor’s hangar in Mojave, California, she said.
Taxi tests are scheduled to begin in October or November, which will be quickly followed by a short hop and finally a brief first flight by the end of the year.
When I was up there a few weeks ago, they were expecting the fuselage in February. And a rollout in summer?
I’m writing a paper that contains the following sentence: “Current reusable suborbital providers, such as XCOR Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, or Armadillo Aerospace, are likely to expand their performance envelopes into orbit over the next 10 to 15 years, driving prices down much closer to the marginal cost of propellant, which means potential prices of less than $100 per pound of payload to LEO.”
Can anyone find me a citation to substantiate this statement? I don’t really want to show my work in this document.
[Late evening update]
Ummmmm…folks in comments?
This is all fun, but I don’t need the argument — I know the argument. I need a citation of someone at least semi-credible who has made it, somewhere else.
Matt Welch has some thoughts on the mission creep of the “If we can put a man on the moon” analogy. It’s also an introduction to this month’s issue of Reason magazine, which is focused on space. It’s on the stands and in the mail now, and other pieces in it, including my own, and contributions from Greg Benford and Bob Zubrin, will be going on line over the next couple weeks.