“New Shepard flew again for the eighth time on April 29, 2018, from Blue Origin’s West Texas Launch Site. Known as Mission 8 (M8), the mission featured a reflight of the vehicle flown on Mission 7. The Crew Capsule reached an apogee of 351,000 feet (66 miles, 107 kilometers) – the altitude we’ve been targeting for operations.
For the second time, Blue Origin’s test dummy Mannequin Skywalker flew to space conducting astronaut telemetry and science studies. The flight also carried research payloads for NASA, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and commercial customers.”
“The BFR, which is variously said to stand for either Big Falcon Rocket or Big F@#$%^& Rocket, announced in September 2017, is SpaceX’s privately-funded launch vehicle, spacecraft and space and ground infrastructure system of spaceflight technology—including reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft. The system includes Earth infrastructure for rapid launch and relaunch; low Earth orbit, and zero-gravity propellant transfer technology. The new vehicle, while much smaller than an earlier version of SpaceX composite material vehicle design, is much larger than the existing SpaceX operational vehicles which it is intended to replace.
The new launch vehicle is planned to replace both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft, in the operational SpaceX fleet in the early 2020s, initially aiming at the Earth-orbit market, but explicitly adding substantial capability to the spacecraft vehicles to support long-duration spaceflight in the cislunar and Mars mission environment as well. SpaceX intends this approach to bring significant cost savings which will help the company justify the development expense of designing and building the new launch vehicle design. BFR is a 9 meters (30 ft)-diameter launch vehicle.
An earlier larger design for the first non-Falcon launch vehicle from SpaceX was known as the ITS launch vehicle in 2016–2017. The design for all of the ITS vehicles were 12 meters (39 ft) diameter. While the earlier SpaceX designs had been aimed at Mars transit and other interplanetary uses, SpaceX pivoted in 2017 to a plan that would replace all SpaceX launch-service-provider capacity—Earth orbit, the Lunar-orbit region, and interplanetary space transport—with a single 9 m (30 ft)-diameter class of launch vehicles and spacecraft.
Development work began on the Raptor rocket engines to be used for both stages of the BFR launch vehicle in 2012, and engine testing began in 2016. New rocket engine designs are typically considered one of the longest of the development subprocesses for new launch vehicles and spacecraft. Tooling for the main tanks has been ordered and a facility to build the vehicles is under construction; construction will start on the first ship in 2Q2018. The company publicly stated an aspirational goal for initial Mars-bound cargo flights of BFR launching as early as 2022, followed by the first BFR flight with passengers one synodic period later, in 2024.”
XCOR completed the first test fire of the rocket engine that will power the Lynx suborbital launch vehicle. The test was performed on Monday, December 15, 2008, at XCOR’s rocket test facility located at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
The rocket engine is designated as 5K18. The engine is powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene and can produce up to 2900 lbf of thrust.
The 5K18 is the eleventh in a series of rocket engines that XCOR has designed and fired during its nine years of existence.
“Today’s successful hot fire marks an important step forward in building the Lynx,” said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “The 5K18 builds on our previous experience in designing and building reliable, durable and fully reusable rocket engines from 15 lbf thrust up to 7500 lbf, that will make it possible to provide affordable access to space.”
The Lynx will use four 5K18 engines and it will be able to perform suborbital flights. Space tourists can buy tickets to fly on the Lynx for $95,000 through RocketShip Tours. The full press release is available on the XCOR Aerospace web site.
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