Reminds me of this older model.
Posted on 04/13/2019 8:58:19 AM PDT by BenLurkin
[I]n the desert north of Los Angeles, a gigantic, six-engined megajet with the wingspan of an American football field flew Saturday morning for the first time.
Stratolaunch Systems, the company founded in 2011 ... conducted the first test flight of the world's largest plane.
Stratolaunch aircraft is a giant flying launch pad, designed to hurtle satellites into low Earth orbit. It aims to offer the military, private companies and even NASA itself a more economical way to get into space.
The aircraft's wingspan measures 385 feet -- wider than any airplane on the planet. From tip to tail, it's 238 feet long....
The jet, carrying a rocket loaded with a satellite, will take off from Mojave and climb to an altitude of 35,000 feet. There, pilots will launch the rocket from the plane on a trajectory toward space. The plane then will land safety back at Mojave, while the rocket carries the satellite into an orbit ranging from about 300 miles to 1,200 miles above Earth. The rocket deploys the satellite before eventually falling back to Earth, burning up in the sky like a meteor.
Putting small satellites into space via airplanes...eliminates the need for launch pads and all the pricey equipment and infrastructure surrounding a traditional rocket launch... the plane burns less fuel than a traditional rocket when it blasts off from Earth.
Bad weather won't be as much of a problem. Storms can delay a traditional rocket launch, but a jet could simply take off and fly over bad weather -- or around it -- and then launch the satellite.
Launches could take place more frequently and within a faster time frame. No more waiting in line for a slot to open up on a spacecraft blasting off from a traditional terrestrial launch pad.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
((Rimshot))
He’s here all week, folks!
CC
I mean they might be one day used on us.
Is it made of spruce?
Inspired by the F-82?
“Hard to imagine the strength of the main spar between the two fuselages.”
Lots of bridge girders, etc., are that strong but NOT THAT LIGHT!
“Stratolauncher, you are cleared for landing runway 22 left AND 22 right.”
Could be, I suppose. And the F-82 was the replacement for the Black Widow, also a dual-fuselage configuration.
Reminds me of this older model.
That’s true of everything you use every day of your life.
According to UNOOSA, in history a total of 8,378 objects have been launched into space. Currently, 4,994 are still in orbit – although 7 of them are in orbit around celestial bodies other than the Earth; meaning there are 4,987 satellites whizzing around above our heads every single day.
The article says it’s meant to be a cost-effective platform for launching satellites into space.
That's my take too. It seems like some unexpected weather condition could torque the two fuselages out of acceptable alignment. They'd start vibrating out of control until something broke. But I'm not in that line of work - I hope the engineers knew what they were doing.
I get it, I was just diving deeper into it.
A lot of things yes, some things (space borne vehicles), make it a lot easier though for bad folks to monitor the good folks.
Isn’t Paul Allen, of Microsoft fame, one of the big investors behind this?
As is ‘spruce goose’?
China and Russia think it would be great if the US had nothing in space too.
Hint: Space is the ultimate high ground. If space is not at least neutral for your cause, you lose.
This aircraft means that the US can put up replacement satellites for knocked out GPS or surveillance sats in 24 hours or less. Readying a rocket to do that from a surface launch takes weeks if not months.
You do the math on how many US troops would lose their lives in a war without GPS or overhead intel in the intervening time.
PS: The Chinese *openly* have an antisatellite installation that has demonstrated mission kills on orbiting satellites.
There is no other aircraft that can haul a rocket of the expected size to that altitude for launch. Not if you want to reuse the aircraft. The rocket is to sit slung under the wing between the two fuselages.
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