What will be the largest airplane to ever fly (an obvious Burt Rutan design) is nearing completion. It's paid for by Microsoft founder Paul Allen and is intended to serve as a high-altitude launch pad for orbital rockets. The concept is basically a scaled up orbital version of the 'Spaceship One' 'do-it-yourself spaceship' concept that Rutan built and Allen funded back in 2004. The Stratolaunch concept was announced years ago, but I didn't know that it was actually proceeding.
It is proceeding. The launcher plane is under construction at Mojave California, where it was revealed at a press event. It's about 3/4 finished. Engines (6 of them, 3 on each wing) and landing gear (taken from two Boeing 747's) and some of the tail components (it has two fuselages and two complete tails) remain to be installed. The plane is due to be completed by the end of the year, with flight testing next year and operational satellite launches in 2018. Mojave is where Spaceship One was flown and where Richard Branson is building his tourist spaceships (one of which crashed a while back during a test). The Stratolaunch launcher plane is being constructed by Scaled Composites (the company's largest project ever), the aviation design and prototyping company that Rutan founded and sold to Northrop Grumman a while back. The Daily Mail article suggests that they are planning to use this to launch Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dreamchaser, a small space-shuttle type manned space plane. It could deliver and return astronauts to and from orbit. Finding a suitable booster is proving problematic. Plans to partner with SpaceX apparently haven't worked out and the two companies "parted amicably".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...plane.html
http://aerospace.vulcan.com/
http://scaled.com/projects/stratolaunch
http://www.sncspace.com/ProductLines/Spa...ionSystems
http://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-seeks-...ompletion/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Com...ratolaunch
It is proceeding. The launcher plane is under construction at Mojave California, where it was revealed at a press event. It's about 3/4 finished. Engines (6 of them, 3 on each wing) and landing gear (taken from two Boeing 747's) and some of the tail components (it has two fuselages and two complete tails) remain to be installed. The plane is due to be completed by the end of the year, with flight testing next year and operational satellite launches in 2018. Mojave is where Spaceship One was flown and where Richard Branson is building his tourist spaceships (one of which crashed a while back during a test). The Stratolaunch launcher plane is being constructed by Scaled Composites (the company's largest project ever), the aviation design and prototyping company that Rutan founded and sold to Northrop Grumman a while back. The Daily Mail article suggests that they are planning to use this to launch Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dreamchaser, a small space-shuttle type manned space plane. It could deliver and return astronauts to and from orbit. Finding a suitable booster is proving problematic. Plans to partner with SpaceX apparently haven't worked out and the two companies "parted amicably".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...plane.html
http://aerospace.vulcan.com/
http://scaled.com/projects/stratolaunch
http://www.sncspace.com/ProductLines/Spa...ionSystems
http://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-seeks-...ompletion/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Com...ratolaunch