A Spaceplane Is Born: A Day in the Life of a Cold Flow, Part Two – Bottle Trailer

(Before It's News)

XCOR Aerospace’s Bryan Campen blogs about the birth of a spaceplane, the XCOR Lynx.

by bryan campen

MOJAVE, Calif. — The bottle trailer is a test stand we use to supply our valves and tanks will pressurization gas. The trailer holds 10 gaseous helium tanks and 8 gaseous nitrogen tanks. It also carries a standalone gaseous nitrogen sphere that bypasses the normal test stand plumbing for use in and around the hangar.

The idea behind the bottle trailer is similar to that of XCOR’s other test stands. We needed a mobile platform that could be versatile and make our pressurization gasses available wherever our testing might be conducted.

Ray Fitting opens one of the valves on a bottle trailer tank.- XCOR Aerospace 

After LOX fill, the stand is moved into position in front of the hangar doors and the bottle trailer is rolled up next to it. Plumbing lines are connected between the two test stands and we are ready to get underway

Tomorrow: join us as we set-up for a cold flow.
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You can find all previous entries in this series under the ‘Suborbital’ tab on the website’s masthead.

PUBLISHER’S NOTICE: A sister company to Moonandback Media, LLC, Moonandback Travel Inc., markets the opportunity to participate in Lynx spaceplane flights.

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