Stratolaunch breaks cover

[Condi]

MartG said:

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

Or maybe they dont see the point in continued investment when the likes of SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin, and the large number of smaller players are already launching rockets. Its a competitive environment, and in the long term there simply isn't enough work for all the different startups. This has always looked an expensive way of doing it - they've not only had to develop a rocket, but also the plane as well.

[anonymous-user]

Has it all gone quiet about the mini satellite launch site in Caithness that was talked about earlier in the year?

[Talksteer]

dundarach said:

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...

What is the bending stress at the tip of an aircraft's wing?

It's zero.

Now imagine two aircraft flying tip to tip and we connect the tips, have we increased the stresses?

No, not significantly

The wings generate lift, the worst bending stress is therefore at the wing root, putting as much masses along the wing as possible lowers the bending stress by distributing the load. Thus a twin fuselage plane will actually see less bending loads.

[Talksteer]

Stratolaunch was based around the concept of Spaceship1/White Knight and was built by the same people.

In the context of 2004 it made sense, reduced the mass and cost of the disposable rocket allow the rocket launch to take place at the equator or away from land in the case of a polar orbit, remove most weather scrubed launches by flying over it.

The issue is that the competition is now re-usable rockets and launching from a plane means that recovery is now actually harder.

The only concept that really make sense from air launched platform is probably a manned space plane see Stratolaunch's ultimate objective the "Black Ice".

It makes sense because launching from a plane tips an SSTO over into being a feasible concept with either Hydrogen/Oxygen or Keroscene/Hydrogen/LOX tri-propellant cycles. However we are probably a little distance from a SSTO passenger shuttle being a business proposition.

If I were Reaction Engines I would look at getting a hold of this aircraft as it would enhance their concept by removing the requirement for the whole system to take off from a super long and specially reinforced runway and also remove the need for undercarriage capable of doing anything other than landing the empty craft.

[anonymous-user]

So has this been abandoned and they were just doing a flight to say it flew before going into a museum like the spruce goose, or is it actually going to be launching anything?

[Eric Mc]

I would say the project is "up in the air" at the moment.

I don't think the future of air launched systems is as bleak as is described above. However, the way satellites are being launched is going through a transition phase at the moment and whether there is a long term future for air launch systems is not clear yet.

Virgin is still pressing ahead with its Cornwall based air launch system.

[Russ35]

Just taken off for its second flight

Coverage here although out of camera view at the minute. They think it could be flying for 2 to 3 hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAII8Y3IaZw

You can track the chase plane on flightradar24 by searching for N8EB, statolaunch also appears with no call sign. They do appear to come and go so presumably not much coverage out there.

[BrettMRC]

Thanks for sharing that

[Russ35]

Getting ready for its 4th test flight very soon

NASASpaceflight are doing live coverage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5sebur_1ok