Posted: Wed, Mar 26 5:45 AM ET (0945 GMT)
XCOR Aerospace announced Wednesday plans to develop a suborbital rocketplane that could start flying people to the edge of space in two years. The Lynx vehicle would take off from a runway under rocket power and fly to an altitude of over 60 km before gliding back to a runway landing. The total flight would last about a half-hour, including a couple minutes of weightlessness. XCOR expects to have the vehicle ready for flights in 2010, focusing primarily on space tourism but also including research and education applications. Lynx is projected to cost $10 million to develop, with ticket prices projected to be about $100,000.

Related Links:

•  Wall Street Journal article (subscription required)
•  SPACE.com article
•  AP article
•  Bakersfield Californian article
•  XCOR Aerospace press release

Posted: Thu, Jan 24 6:56 AM ET (1156 GMT)
Space tourism operator Virgin Galactic and vehicle developer Scaled Composites unveiled a new design for the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) suborbital spacecraft and its carrier aircraft, White Knight Two (WK2), on Wednesday. The new designs, announced in New York, feature several tweaks to the design of SpaceShipOne as well what had been shown in previous artist's concepts of SS2. The new SS2 design features a wing mounted on the bottom of the fuselage, rather than the top, and with a more elongated nose. WK2 is now powered by four jet engines, and features dual fuselages with SS2 slung between and below them. The companies did not commit to a specific timetable for flight tests or for beginning commercial service, other than that initial flights of WK2 were scheduled to begin in the summer of 2008. Virgin also said they are investigating using WK2 as a carrier aircraft for other rockets that could launch small satellites.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article
•  Reuters article
•  New York Times article
•  MSNBC article
•  Wall Street Journal article (subscription required)

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