The Stratolaunch Corporation successfully performed this Saturday (13/04) the first flight of the largest aircraft on the planet, in of wingspan.
With a double fuselage design and a wingspan greater than the length of an American football field (117 meters), the Stratolaunch plane took off from Mojave Air and Spaceport, in the Mojave Desert, California (USA).
The aircraft reached a maximum speed of 309 km/h, in total the flight lasted 2,5 hours above the Mojave Desert reaching an altitude of 17.000 feet.
As part of the first flight, pilots evaluated the aircraft's performance and handling characteristics before successfully landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
The aircraft performed such maneuvers during the flight:
- Flight control maneuvers to calibrate speed and test flight control systems, including roll doublings, yaw maneuvers, pushovers and pull-ups, and steady steering sideways.
- Conducted simulated landing approach exercises at a maximum altitude of 15000 feet, considering sea level.
“What a fantastic first flight,” said Jean Floyd, CEO of Stratolaunch.
The Stratolaunch was created by Scaled Composites, to be used exclusively by the company founded by Paul Allen, and specialized in launching rockets at high altitude.
only small satellites
After failing to sign a contract with SpaceX and other companies, Stratolaunch is focusing on transporting satellites small at a time. Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic, as already mentioned above, also has the same perspective with the 747 project, while SpaceShipTwo can transport both people and cargo.
If Stratolaunch wants to gain market first it needs to operate with a low launch price, rockets like SpaceX's Falcon 9 are capable of launching up to 10 small satellites at a time.
This is not a big problem for Allen, as the businessman said in an interview on May 1 that he is guaranteed launch technology with the ability to reduce costs, even if it previously cost millions of dollars.
“I'm not saying you want to lose money,” said Jean Floyd, chief executive of Stratolaunch Systems. “But Paul Allen never talked to me about, 'How much money am I going to make if I get this?'”.
Capacity
Despite its low autonomy, the Stratolaunch has the capacity to receive up to 250 kg of cargo, which must be located between the two crew cabins, on the middle wing. The autonomy is quite small, but enough to carry out this mission and return to the base with leftovers, in total this plane can only fly for up to 2200 km with a maximum load.
The incredible thing is that if the Stratolaunch manages to fly, it will be the aircraft with the largest wing ever built in history. In propulsion, this plane has six Pratt & Whitney PW4056 engines, which equip the Boeing 747 and provide up to 63300 lbf each.
The Stratolaunch has six fuel tanks in all, 117 meters of wing (more than an Antonov An-225), empty weighs about 226 kg and can weigh almost 350 when full of fuel. There are 24 tires and wheels on the main landing gear, plus 4 on the nose landing gear.
The Orbital ATK rocket, on the other hand, is equipped with Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engines, powered by Liquid Oxygen (LO2) and Liquid Hydrogen (LH2), it is not the simplest solution, since obtaining liquid hydrogen is complicated, but the solution with the best weight / power, and better burning (also does not pollute the atmosphere, Greenpeace).
