First Prize Of Its Kind Offered By XCOR Aerospace & Southwest Research Institute

In a first of its kind prize for the reusable suborbital research community, XCOR Aerospace and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) will give away a research flight to be awarded to one lucky paid registrant at the Next-Generation Suborbital Research Conference (NSRC) 2012 Conference to be held February 27-29 in Palo Alto, CA.

"This is a great day for the researcher, educator or the innovative college student who will be attending NSRC-2012 in Silicon Valley at the end of February," said Andrew Nelson, Chief Operating Officer of XCOR Aerospace. "They now have a chance to win a flight that would otherwise cost $95,000 with XCOR, or up to $200,000 on competing vehicles. We are pleased to make this contribution to further the suborbital research and education community."

As the industry leader in fully reusable manned rocket-powered spacecraft for suborbital research operations and personal spaceflight, XCOR has made this flight available together with SwRI, the globally recognized leader in the suborbital research field. SwRI is also an XCOR-authorized Lynx payload integrator and the lead organizer of the NSRC-2012 conference.

"This XCOR flight can be a career-changing event for the winner," said Dr. Alan Stern, former NASA Associate Administrator for Science, and Associate Vice President of Research and Development for the Space Science and Engineering Division at SwRI. Dr. Stern added, "This kind of opportunity in the hands of an innovative student or recent graduate researcher can be the catalyst for years of productive funded research and/or entrepreneurial pursuits, so register now for NSRC-2012 for your chance at a funded suborbital spaceflight!"

The contest is open to full conference paid-in-advance registrants of NSRC-2012 over the age of 18 and a researcher, student or educator interested in the field of suborbital research. The winner will receive a research flight on the XCOR Lynx Mark I reusable suborbital spacecraft. The winner 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 winner will be responsible for developing and building his or her own experiment.

The Official Rules are available on the XCOR website.

FMI: http://nsrc.swri.org