Stratolaunch breaks cover

[eccles]

Eric Mc said:

eccles said:

It's amazing how time flies, I remember doing the conversion at Marshalls in the early 90's. Lots of stripping out, lots of modifications, lots of air testing with bits falling off, endless sticking bits of wool on the lower fuselage to show airflow direction, then more modifications and no more bits falling off!
Happy days.

It's due for retirement soon. I watched one of their launches live a year or so ago.

It will be a sad day when it does, it's the last Tristar flying and there's not many of that generation of airliner left in use any more. I seem to recall when we converted it, the life span was only meant to be 10 years or so.

[Eric Mc]

To be fair, it's not been used that many times.

[Kccv23highliftcam]

Steve_D said:

Mave said:

Voldemort said:

What's the point of two cockpits?

Maybe commonality of design of the forward fuselage? Maybe for ground ops?

I read somewhere they had salvaged two 747 400s for the engines and various other systems. To my eye the widescreens look very much like 747 so they may have grafted the whole nose(s) on complete with all the instrumentation in place.


Steve

Na pointy end looks B1B....

[Beati Dogu]

Sad to hear that Stratolaunch's (and Microsoft's) co founder Paul Allen passed away a few days ago at only 65. He'd been suffering a recent return of non-Hodgkins lymphoma after nearly a decade in remission.

His interests and investments were widespread, from sports teams to venture capital and aerospace. Quite an interesting guy by any respects.

[MartG]

It looks like it will never be used, as Stratolaunch have cancelled development of the launcher part of the system

https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch...

If they only offer Pegasus XL launches, which can be launched by cheaper existing aircraft, I can't see it getting beyond a test flight or two.

The ability to carry up to three Pegasuses ( Pegasi ? ) at once isn't really an attractive proposition - who would want to risk three launchers on a single flight, and I suspect three separate launch flights by existing aircraft would still work out cheaper.

[Russ35]

Stratolaunch has just taken to the sky for the first time.

Find @thejackbeyer on twitter for a video.

[snake_oil]

Russ35 said:

Stratolaunch has just taken to the sky for the first time.

Find @thejackbeyer on twitter for a video.

Here you go.

https://youtu.be/XfUy21HHtME

As a layman I'm surprised the tail surfaces are not joined also.

[GliderRider]

snake_oil said:

Russ35 said:

Stratolaunch has just taken to the sky for the first time.

Find @thejackbeyer on twitter for a video.

Here you go.

https://youtu.be/XfUy21HHtME

As a layman I'm surprised the tail surfaces are not joined also.

Structurally, there is no point; it would mean the whole airframe, particularly down the back, would have to be a lot stiffer and heavier.

[Eric Mc]

Not joining the tails is not compulsory -

[FourWheelDrift]

snake_oil said:

Here you go.

https://youtu.be/XfUy21HHtME

As a layman I'm surprised the tail surfaces are not joined also.

some clearer footage here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzrvAF2QVKk

[FourWheelDrift]

The inevitable comparison diagram.

[gwm]

I wish I could find the link, but I'm sure I read somewhere that this won't be profitable because SpaceX can do it cheaper?

The only big advantage this has that it has a quick prep and turnaround time?

[Eric Mc]

gwm said:

I wish I could find the link, but I'm sure I read somewhere that this won't be profitable because SpaceX can do it cheaper?

The only big advantage this has that it has a quick prep and turnaround time?

No - the main advantage is that it can avoid bad weather related scrubbs much more easily than a fixed launch pad system because it can fly to an area where the weather is better.

The main disadvantage is that there is a limit to how large a booster rocket it can carry, which in turn limits the size of payloads. But on the whole, payloads are getting smaller and lighter so it could be very competitive in launching smaller satellites.

There is already one air launch system available (Pegasus) and there will very shortly be another in the form of Virgin's version which will be based in Newquay.

[gwm]

Ok thanks for the response.

With the other plane options they must be cheaper. I guess then Strato can carry a bit more than the planes but less than the big rockets? That seems a small market they are going to appeal to.

[Eric Mc]

That is it in a nutshell. However, the growth area is in smaller, lightweight satellites so they obviously reckon there will be business for them from that pool of customers. One recent phenomenon is the launching of multiple small satellites on one rocket. Last year, an Indian rocket launched over 100 nano-sats in one go. So you could see how a larger air launched booster could launch (say) twice as many satellites on one booster than a smaller less powerful one. This would result in a cheaper launch cost for each individual customer.

[gwm]

Well I used to work for Paul Allen so I hope it works out. This sort of thing was what he really cared about

[dundarach]

It awesome

However on earth doesn't it snap in two, what is the middle section made from, the stress at the centre point must be extreme...

[Voldemort]

The end.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-explorati...

[Eric Mc]

Possibly - although the project may be resurrected by somebody else.

[MartG]

Seems Paul Allen's estate are more interested in the short term cash windfall