The XCOR layoffs on May 27, 2016 are part of a retrenchment to focus on projects that are bringing in revenue, such as the upper stage engine XCOR is developing for ULA. The layoffs primarily affected the team working on the Lynx suborbital space plane. Some employees involved in the program remain; however, work on building the spacecraft has been suspended for the time being.

November 30, 2015

Three co-founders have left XCOR to start a new company, Agile Aero. That company, which, like XCOR, is based in Midland, Texas, will be focused on addressing a problem Greason says has afflicted XCOR and other aerospace companies: the inability to rapidly develop and test vehicles, be they high-speed aircraft or launch vehicles.

“We’ve seen so many companies run into the same obstacle,” he said in an interview. “Once you get past cylindrical designs into vehicles that have lift in the atmosphere, the complexity gets to the point where the ability of people to try things rapidly, and succeed or fail fast, runs out of steam.

Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic's owner, has repeatedly stated that space tourism needs to be as safe as commercial flight from the get-go. Branson has pointed out that NASA has lost roughly 3% of all the astronauts it ever took to space, and joked that a "government-owned company" could "just about get away" with a loss of that magnitude, whereas his venture "can't afford to lose anybody."

June 22, 2014

MDC, an Texas economic development corporation funded by the quarter-cent sales tax, successfully made a $10 million incentive package for XCOR in 2012. The incentives package offered included $2 million for relocating XCOR’s headquarters to Midland and $5 million in performance incentives.

December 23, 2015

"(XCOR has) come to the conclusion that they basically had more space than they really needed at this point,” said Robert Rendall, MDC board member.

Nov 23, 2012, Atlanta Business Chronicle

Mojave, Calif.-based XCOR Aerospace Inc. has toured the Camden site. The rocket engine and space vehicle manufacturer has considered the proposed Georgia spaceport as a potential location for an East Coast research and development and flight testing facility, Chief Operating Officer Andrew Nelson said. 

Nelson points to Mojave Air & Space Port, one of the original commercial spaceports, as an example of an economic development engine. In addition to aviation and space vehicle companies such as XCOR, the development lured suppliers, electronics companies and renewable energy companies.

XCOR moved from Mojave Air and Space Port to Midland, Texas.

Virgin Galactic has built its manufacturing plant at Mojave instead of at Spaceport America that was built at a cost >$200,000,000.

Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer and vice president of business development of Mojave, California-based space plane developer XCOR Aerospace, spoke to Space.com at the Airshow about his company's interest in one proposed site, Newquay. "Newquay is sort of interesting. It points right out to the water. You're not flying over anything under rocket power, which is nice."

By Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer | June 8, 2012
NEW YORK — Thrill seekers looking for the ultimate rocket ride may soon turn that dream into a reality aboard a new suborbital spaceship, a winged rocket plane slated to start launching space tourists from California and a tiny Caribbean island by 2014.

The Mojave, Calif.-based XCOR Aerospace is developing the suborbital Lynx space plane to carry paying passengers to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, to altitudes up to and exceeding 62 miles (100 kilometers). XCOR is aiming to begin operational Lynx flights from California's Mojave Spaceport in 2013 and from the Dutch-controlled island of Curacao in the Caribbean a year later, said Andrew Nelson, XCOR's chief operating officer.
 

Then...
Thursday, June 27, 2013, Orlando Sentinel

This evening, the Orlando Sentinel broke the story that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will be at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to announce that NASA will lease the former Shuttle Landing Facility to Space Florida, which will make the runway available to private users such as XCOR. According to the article, “participant flights” could begin as soon as 2015.

A deal to locate at KSC was "99 percent of the way there," he said, with only paperwork remaining said XCOR Chief Operating Officer Andrew Nelson. Orlando Sentinel June 27, 2013

“We will be permanently basing our Lynx Mark 2 production vehicle in Florida,” XCOR chief operating officer Andrew Nelson told Space News.  Irene Klotz, Space News | August 24, 2012

Now...
XCOR has still not made its first tourist flight and has moved its headquarters to Midland, Texas.

"A spaceport on Curacao will create a lot of opportunities for the local community and economy. It will be a boost for the island tourism and will also attract a wide variety of businesses. That's why CAH wants a spaceport on Curacao. CAH is providing the facilities to make this happen. It will influence Curacao in a whole new way. XCOR has built a suborbital spaceplane that SXC is going to use."