The world’s largest Stratolaunch catamaran ever built has successfully completed its second test flight.
This is the world’s first giant catamaran, similar to two Boeing jumbo jets flying side-by-side. This aircraft “juggernaut” is capable of transporting rockets or space vehicles to heights of more than 30,000 feet for launch, thus reducing the high fuel costs associated with launching rockets directly from the ground.
According to space.com, the Seattle-based aerospace transportation company Stratolaunch Systems Corporation’s Roc, a catamaran aircraft, is being refurbished to The aircraft made its second test flight on Thursday morning (April 29), where it stayed aloft for three hours and 14 minutes, to transport a hypersonic vehicle at high altitude.
The giant aircraft, with a wingspan of 385 feet (or 117 meters), lifted off from the skies over Mojave Air and Space Port in southeastern California at 10:28 a.m. EDT and conducted a data-gathering flight.
Stratospheric Launch Systems was pleased with the success of the test flight, which reached a maximum altitude of 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) and a top speed of 199 miles per hour (or 320 kilometers per hour).
The company calls the twin “the world’s largest all-composite aircraft” and structurally superb for transporting other vehicles to high altitudes for launch.
Zachary Krevor, the company’s chief operating officer, told a news conference after the test flight that the company was not only pleased with the performance of the catamaran, but also excited that it would soon launch its first hypersonic vehicle.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen founded Stratospheric Launch Systems in 2011 with the idea of using the Rocbird to launch satellites in the air, but unfortunately, the plane did not make its first test flight until April 2019, and Allen died in October 2018. He passed away in October 2018 and had no chance to see his vision become a reality.
The company changed ownership in October 2019, and after that, the role of Pangos will be to serve as a mobile launch platform for supersonic vehicles, which can fly at least five times faster than the speed of sound.
Stratospheric Launch Systems is currently developing its own family of hypersonic vehicles, including a reusable 28-foot-long (or 8.5-meter) vehicle known as Talon-A, which will be the first to fly with the Rooster.
If all goes according to plan, the first drop tests of Roc and Talon-A will take place early next year. The expendable version of Talon-A will reach hypersonic speeds later in 2022, while the first flight of the reusable Talon-A variant will take place in 2023, said Daniel Millman, the company’s chief technology officer.
The data collected during Talon-A’s flight could be of interest to the U.S. military, which has been developing its own hypersonic vehicle for years.
One of the areas the company is currently working on is a desire to help the U.S. Department of Defense reduce the cost of expensive flight tests, Millman said. “Stratospheric Launch Systems is increasing the country’s ability to become a global leader in the hypersonic market.” Millman said in a statement.
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