Submitted by the Bond & Botes Law Offices - Tuesday, November 21, 2017
XCOR Aerospace, an innovator in the aerospace industry, has filed for bankruptcy.
XCOR is a private spaceflight and rocket engine development company based at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, and in Midland, Texas. There are also locations in Amsterdam and Hong Kong. XCOR is best known in the aerospace industry for a suborbital space plane that was announced in 2008. They designed “Lynx” to carry a pilot and one space flight participant. The company intended for Lynx to take off from a runway and fly into a suborbital arc, landing back on the runway after the flight. XCOR aimed for Lynx to take space tourists to the edge of space. In fact, as of 2012, XCOR pre-sold 175 flights aboard Lynx for $95,000 each.
The Lead Up to Bankruptcy
Unfortunately, XCOR was never able to compete the prototype for Lynx. In 2016, the company announced that it was putting Lynx on the back burner to focus on a project with United Launch Alliance. At the same time, XCOR announced it was laying off half of its employees. Over the summer, the company's CEO stepped down, and it laid off several more of its employees, hiring a few back as contractors.
All of this lead to XCOR Aerospace filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on November 8, 2017, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California. In recent weeks, the company has been attempting to round up investors to keep the company afloat. Michael Blum, who took over as CEO of the company in June, said on October 19 that the XCOR only had a few weeks to find investors or it would run out of money. Unfortunately, time ran out and the company decided to file bankruptcy. According to the bankruptcy filing, XCOR has between $1 million and $10 million in assets, and liabilities ranging between $10 million and $50 million.
The attorneys at Bond and Botes are here to help you explore your options when you feel like you need relief from your own debt problems. Please give one of our offices a call to set up a free initial consultation.