The savings would be twofold: a smaller and cheaper rocket still able to carry a payload into orbit, and a re-usable launch aircraft ready to be prepared to carry another rocket for launch at short notice.Ī diagram showing off the sheer size of the Stratolaunch. But what if you could launch a rocket from nearly ten or so kilometres off the ground? Read More: Savoia-Marchetti S.55 – The Unlikely Endurance AthleteĪLTO is one of the many options examined over the years to try to reduce the high cost of inserting satellites and other cargo into orbit and to try and break the monopoly of only using expensive single-use heavy orbital rockets to get cargo into space.įrom Gerald Bull’s High Altitude Research Project (HARP) using heavy gun barrels to ‘shoot’ objects into space and SpaceX’s new reusable launch boosters, the quest to lower costs for space exploration and transport is ongoing and will continue.ĪLTO is an ingenious principle the first stage of any orbital rocket has to do the most work and be correspondingly powerful, large and expensive to lift the entire assembly off the ground.
Stratolauch Systems was launched by one of the founders of Microsoft and the owner of the Scaled Composited aerospace company, to provide Air-Launched-To-Orbit (ALTO) services for getting commercial and scientific payloads off the planet. Photo credit – Orbital, Stratolaunch, via L2. To carry such a large rocket obviously demands a massive carrier aircraft, and the Stratolaunch is exactly that: boasting dimensions that include the widest wingspan of any aircraft ever constructed.Ī render of the Stratolaunch carrying the Pegasus II. The Stratolaunch was constructed to carry and launch the Pegasus II, a multi-stage rocket designed to carry payloads of varying weights into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) or Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). The aircraft which was designed and manufactured to achieve this formidable technical feat was the Scaled Composites Stratolaunch, which by the very nature of its intended purpose is one of the largest aircraft ever constructed. However, sometimes a good idea can come to nought despite having been proven to function safely and efficiently, and a good example of this is an ambitious scheme to launch rockets into orbit from a high-flying aircraft. The new millennium continues this trend, and exciting experimental applications for aircraft are proposed, tested and often adopted into general use on a regular basis. In the years and decades following this historic first flight, aircraft have gained in both size and performance and can perform a staggering variety of roles in both military and civilian use. The constant development of new aviation capabilities has been a theme ever since the Wright brothers first flew a rickety contraption called the Wright Flyer in 1903.
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