The world’s largest aircraft, Stratolaunch Rock, is one step closer to launching hypersonic vehicles

The largest plane in the world Stratolaunch RockIt is about to begin to achieve the purpose for which it was built. that it air launch platform Designed to deploy vehicles mid-flight, a capability, As Northrop Grumman explains,, one of the project partners, will serve as a supersonic test bed. In addition, it is hoped that in the future it will allow satellites to be put into orbit at a lower cost.

Over the past few years, the world’s largest aircraft He underwent various tests. Last May, for example, Bilon debutedThe structure that will allow the loading and launching of hypersonic vehicles, such as the Talon-A, which will travel faster than Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,668 metres). Just last week, this chassis was tested for the first time with the TA-0.

One year after starting the business

TA-0 is a non-powered version of Talon-A designed to test the pylon and all Stratolaunch Roc systems in a real world environment. mother ship took off On October 28 from a runway located in the Mojave Desert in the United States, it completed a flight that took just over five hours and reached an altitude of 23,000 feet (7,000 meters). “We have built confidence in it Components will perform exactly as designed‘ said Stratolaunch.

From now until the end of the year, Explain the company, they will conduct other test flights, including one that will operate the TA-0’s pylon firing mechanism over the Pacific Ocean. If all goes according to plan, Stratolaunch Roc It can start providing its services to government and commercial customers in 2023. We’ll have to wait to see how the projects of this company founded in 2011 by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, and Scaled Composites founder, Burt Rutan, will develop.

In connection with the task of reducing costs to put satellites into orbit, there are several projects underway. SpaceX has marked the pre- and post-launch period thanks to its advances in recovering and reusing rockets. Astra aims to launch rockets daily to democratize access to space. Virgin Orbit, by Richard Branson A Boeing 747-400 is used to launch a LauncherOne satellite carrier missile. As we can see, the aviation industry is more active than ever.

Pictures: stratolaunch

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