XCOR Aerospace, located at the Mojave Air and Space Port, and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, are offering an extraordinary prize that is the first of its kind for the reusable suborbital research community. One fortunate professional researcher, educator, or advanced student registrant at February's Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC-2012) will be awarded a research flight on board the company's Lynx Mark I, reusable suborbital spacecraft.
The funded prize is considered such a golden opportunity for a researcher that Dr. Alan Stern commented, "This XCOR flight can be a career-changing event for the winner." Dr. Stern is the former NASA Associate Administrator for Science and the Associate Vice President of Research and Development for the Space Science and Engineering Division of SwRI.
The winner of the coveted prize will be able to fly with his or her experiment and operate it from the right seat of the Lynx, or can opt to use the right side where the participant seat normally fits and prepare a larger automated experiment. The experiment must have met all Lynx safety, interoperability, and vehicle/payload requirements.
The Lynx rocket can reach an altitude of approximately 62 miles, exiting the earth's atmosphere. At the top of the flight profile, the craft can maneuver about in a microgravity environment for about four minutes, and then return again to earth. Rocket flight animation for the Lynx, crafted by XCOR's Mike Massee, can be viewed at www.xcor.com.
The Lynx-family of vehicles serves three primary missions: research and scientific missions; private spaceflight; and micro-satellite launch (only on the Lynx Mark III). Reservations for space tourism on the Lynx are presently being accepted and around 40 individuals have already booked their flight with XCOR's rocket travel agency, SXC, Space Expedition Curacao.
The current cost for a flight on the Lynx Mark I is $95,000.
The NSRC-2012 Conference will be held on February 27-29, 2012 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Resort in Palo Alto, California. "This is a great day for the researcher, educator or the innovative college student who will be attending," said Andrew Nelson, Chief Operating Officer of XCOR Aerospace.
