It's Big Jim
Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch lifts veil on world’s biggest plane – a giant bet on a new way to space, Geekwire
“The plane’s wing, taking shape inside a 103,000-square-foot hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port, stands three stories off the ground and measures 385 feet from tip to tip. That’s three times longer than the distance of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight in 1903. If the Enterprise is ever built to its “Star Trek” TV dimensions, now or in the 23rd century, the starship would be only a few dozen feet wider.”
Keith’s note: Vulcan Aerospace gave a hand-picked group of space journalists a tour of their facility. They saw Stratolaunch. It is big and it is 76% complete. No information was given as to customers, markets, etc. In other words: no news. Did I mention that it is big?
Larger image
I’d like to know how they plan to test this thing and how much the engineers are stressing out.
Probably no different than testing the A380, or the F-82. Some high speed taxi tests, then at some point someone has to pull the stick back and find out if the engineers knew what they were doing. Nowadays with all the computer simulations there probably won’t be too many surprises when they actually fly it.
Of course at some point they have to do flight tests carrying a launcher, to test the aerodynamics, weight and balance, etc. They could build a static test article, or just do test flights with an actual launcher.
Biggy McBigFace?
The GeekWire article asks, “So when will it be finished? That’s a tricky question.”
I am reminded of this bit of dialogue from the movie “Lust for Life.”
Pope Julius: “When will you make an end?”
Michelangelo: “When I am finished.”
Whenever it takes to the air, it will be welcome. The ability to carry multiple second-stage launchers is a great thing IMO. We are seeing the value of many different approaches to routine space access.
BTW: I assume in your lede you meant “It’s big, Jim.”
Unless the airplane is named “Big Jim”.
Once it is flying, if Stratolaunch can line up potential launch customers they will certainly be able to get someone to build a rocket. The obvious problem is that the size of the launch vehicle is limited and thus probably restricted to low orbits with small satellites.
“We’ve got a problem, Mr. Allen: nobody seems interested in flying satellites from Mr. Big over here”.
Allen: “I know! Let’s put on a show! You know, with like superlatives ‘n stuff!”
So, they’re just building one copy of this thing? No backup? Still no actual launcher designs for this thing to drop?
More questions here than answers.
Probably because the maintenance can be scheduled between launches, since it’s not like Air Force One where they need to keep one readily available.
True a poorly timed mechanical issue with the aircraft could cause a delay, but that’s not much different than the hundreds of other types of problems that can delay rocket launches.
Understood that if there was a hull loss it would be a huge setback, but the odds of that are probably low enough that it doesn’t warrant building a spare. It could put customers in a bind who don’t have an alternative, but I guess customers will have to take that into consideration when deciding on this launch system, whether they consider that risk too high.
If it’s successful and they get a lot of business then maybe they would consider building a second plane, both to help with scheduling logistics and also to provide the redundancy that you are referring to. That would also give them a chance to make modifications after having experience with the first model. Maybe improved range for example, needed for some launches but not others.
I wish them luck, but it’s strange to see them this far along with building the aircraft and they still have no clue what sort of launch vehicle they’re going to stick under the thing. Sometimes this “build it and they will come” approach fails miserably.
From what I have read they didn’t plan to be in this situation, they thought they had some partners lined up. So far that hasn’t materialized but I guess they figure might as well proceed anyway. Hard to imagine they won’t eventually find someone willing to build launchers for them, but if companies don’t see it as worth their while they will price it high, which drives up the cost per launch and reduces the number of potential customers. Sort of a vicious cycle, which hopefully they can avoid.