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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday June 01 2017, @11:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the to-infinity-and-beyond dept.

Stratolaunch, the giant aircraft designed to lift rockets into the stratosphere for drop-and-launch has been rolled out for the first time.

The initial construction on the massive plane Paul Allen has been quietly building in the California desert is complete, and the vehicle, which would be the world's largest plane with a wingspan wider than Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, was wheeled out of its hangar for the first time on Wednesday.

[...] But why is Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Seattle Seahawks, building such a massive plane? It's not to carry passengers, but rather rockets. The bigger the plane, the larger the rockets, or the greater the number.

Allen's Stratolaunch company has partnered with Orbital ATK to "air launch" the company's Pegasus XL, a rocket capable of delivering small satellites, weighing as much as 1000 pounds, to orbit. The rockets would be tethered to the belly of the giant plane, which would fly them aloft, and once at an altitude of 35,000 feet or so, the rockets would drop and "air launch" to space.

"With airport-style operations and quick turn-around capabilities," the company said it believes "air launch" is a cheaper and more efficient way to get satellites into space than rockets that launch vertically and can be extraordinarily expensive.

See also:
The Register
Ars Technica (pictures)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @08:37AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @08:37AM (#519274)

    They are probably not sure if they may need to carry rockets longer then their fuselage, otherwise it would had been a sane thing to do.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @09:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @09:30AM (#519283)

    Put a cross piece up high, like a greek letter pi.