XCOR Aerospace

XCOR Aerospace is an American private spaceflight and rocket engine development company based at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California and Midland International Air and Spaceport in Midland, Texas. XCOR was formed by former members of the Rotary Rocket rocket engine development team in September, 1999.

XCOR is headed by John "Jay" Gibson who is CEO.

History

The company was founded in Mojave, California in 1999 by Jeff Greason, Dan DeLong, Aleta Jackson and Doug Jones each of whom had previously worked at the Rotary Rocket company.

In 2001, the XCOR designed and built EZ-Rocket, the first privately built and flown rocket-powered airplane. EX-Rocket made its maiden flight in July 2001, flown by test pilot Dick Rutan.

Rick Searfoss, Chief Test Pilot in 2013, joined the company in the mid-2000s.Scaled Composites record-setting test pilot Brian Binnie joined XCOR in 2014 as both a test pilot and engineer.

XCOR announced a move of its development and manufacturing operations to Midland, Texas in July 2012. XCOR considered a number of locations for the move, including Spaceport Colorado, before announcing that they would be moving their company headquarters and R&D activities to Texas, in part due to a significant set of financial incentives (US$10,000,000) offered to XCOR by the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) and the Midland City Council.