The Lynx was intended to carry one pilot, a ticketed passenger, and/or a payload above 100 kilometres (62 mi) altitude.

[4] Following the bankruptcy of XCOR Aerospace in 2017, the assets of the company were sold to the nonprofit organization Build A Plane, which will focus on education rather than suborbital flight.

Dan DeLong (Chief Engineer) and Aleta Jackson left the company entirely, while Jeff Greason, the former CEO, remained on the Board of Directors until he resigned in March 2016.

[18] The Lynx Mark III was intended to be the same vehicle as the Mark II with an External Dorsal Mounted Pod of 650 kg (1,430 lb) and was to be large enough to hold a two-stage carrier to launch a microsatellite or multiple nanosatellites into low Earth orbit.

Integrated test firings of the engine/nozzle combination demonstrated the ability of the aluminum nozzle to withstand the high temperatures of rocket-engine exhaust.

The Lynx 5K18 effort to develop a new aluminum alloy engine nozzle using new manufacturing techniques would remove several hundred pounds of weight from the large engine leading to significantly lower-cost and more-capable commercial and US government space flights.

[31] The cockpit of the Lynx (made of carbon fiber and designed by AdamWorks, Colorado) was reported as being one of the items that held up the assembly.

[35] In January 2016, XCOR's CEO Jay Gibson said "…we anticipate the wings to be there in the very near future…" and the CTO Michael Valant said they were finding that calibrating the flaps was a challenge.

A third and final round of tests was completed in late 2011 using a "1/60-scale supersonic wind tunnel model of Lynx.

[10][11][39] By January 2016, however, technical hurdles led the company to state that they had not assigned a new projected date for test flights.

[2] In March 2011, XCOR submitted the Lynx as a reusable launch vehicle for carrying research payloads in response to NASA's suborbital reusable launch vehicle (sRLV) solicitation, which is a part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program.

According to XCOR, the Lynx was intended to fly four or more times a day and would have also had the capacity to deliver payloads into space.

Media reports in 2014 anticipated that, by the end of 2015 or in 2016, the Lynx was expected to begin flying suborbital space tourism flights and scientific research missions from a new spaceport on the Caribbean island of Curaçao.