Stratolaunch Systems

FighterJock said:
topspeed3 said:
Wouldn't the greatest feature be to send paying customers to the orbit..in a shuttle like system ?
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I would like that idea, it would provide competition for Virgin Galactic and hopefully bring the price of going into space for the average person down.
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With only one plane I don't see them ever getting the numbers down to where the average person could afford it. Now SpaceX, with their Starship, if they took 100 at a shot. . .
 
Apparently the Science show about Stratolaunch finally premiered in the US. Did anybody watch it? Was it any good?
 
I finally watched it. Some nice video of the aircraft. They provided some insight about it, but it was at a very high (low?) level--not very sophisticated, nothing very challenging. Clearly aimed at people who know nothing about airplanes. They never wanted to include anything that might make people have to think hard.

They also left out a lot of information, like the fact that it was built from some leftover 747 hardware. No discussion of the long and convoluted history of the rockets it was supposed to launch. No discussion of specific dates or milestones other than first flight. They did discuss the big control surfaces and how it uses cables running from the controls to the surfaces which then get a power boost. This may be a leftover from the 747 hardware origins, but the show did not say. They did mention the strong bending moment on the center wing and how much weight it is supposed to carry. What they could have mentioned is that when that weight is dropped, it will cause a reaction in that section (as well as the control surfaces). No discussion of how they dealt with that.

So it was pretty to look at, but not intellectually stimulating in any way.
 
TomS said:
FighterJock said:
TomS said:
blackstar said:
Apparently the Science show about Stratolaunch finally premiered in the US. Did anybody watch it? Was it any good?
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It is streamable in the US:

This is SCI

www.sciencechannel.com www.sciencechannel.com
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Any idea as to when it will be available on YouTube?
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No idea. I don't work for the Science Channel, I just know how to Google really good. ;)
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Just checked the Science Channels YouTube page the Stratolaunch show is not on YouTube yet, hope it is not long before it appears on YouTube as I am desperate to see it.
 
chimeric oncogene said:
Truly the Spruce Goose of our era.
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They showed the Spruce Goose in the documentary. They didn't do so with any irony. The theme of shows like this is "Wow! Cool! Neato!" and not "This was probably not a good idea..."

For instance, no mention of the long and failed effort to get a rocket to launch from this aircraft. No mention that it was funded by a billionaire as his vanity project (clearly a similarity to Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose, right?), or that he died, or that the company was folding and then re-launched itself. Nothing negative there. Just Giant Airplane Coolness.

The episode looks nice, however, so let's just go with that.
 
blackstar said:
chimeric oncogene said:
Truly the Spruce Goose of our era.
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They showed the Spruce Goose in the documentary. They didn't do so with any irony. The theme of shows like this is "Wow! Cool! Neato!" and not "This was probably not a good idea..."

For instance, no mention of the long and failed effort to get a rocket to launch from this aircraft. No mention that it was funded by a billionaire as his vanity project (clearly a similarity to Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose, right?), or that he died, or that the company was folding and then re-launched itself. Nothing negative there. Just Giant Airplane Coolness.

The episode looks nice, however, so let's just go with that.
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I'm not sure why people are surprised about this. It's just the nature of how these shows are made. They require a good deal of access and cooperation from the companies, and that usually comes with some degree of content control. Companies clearly don't want to cooperate if they feel they are going to be presented in a negative light, and word gets around, so a production team that gets a reputation for criticizing their subjects doesn't get invited to the next company that want to film. And obviously, the company employees are never going to be forthright about their problems -- they want to keep their jobs and keep the company in business.
 
TomS said:
blackstar said:
chimeric oncogene said:
Truly the Spruce Goose of our era.
Click to expand...
They showed the Spruce Goose in the documentary. They didn't do so with any irony. The theme of shows like this is "Wow! Cool! Neato!" and not "This was probably not a good idea..."

For instance, no mention of the long and failed effort to get a rocket to launch from this aircraft. No mention that it was funded by a billionaire as his vanity project (clearly a similarity to Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose, right?), or that he died, or that the company was folding and then re-launched itself. Nothing negative there. Just Giant Airplane Coolness.

The episode looks nice, however, so let's just go with that.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why people are surprised about this. It's just the nature of how these shows are made. They require a good deal of access and cooperation from the companies, and that usually comes with some degree of content control. Companies clearly don't want to cooperate if they feel they are going to be presented in a negative light, and word gets around, so a production team that gets a reputation for criticizing their subjects doesn't get invited to the next company that want to film. And obviously, the company employees are never going to be forthright about their problems -- they want to keep their jobs and keep the company in business.
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I'm not surprised. I'm merely reporting on what the show depicted and what kind of show it is.

However, while I would not expect harsh criticism of the project, I was surprised that they left certain things out, like Paul Allen's involvement and his death. The project happened because of him, but as far as I can tell, he was not mentioned at all. And maybe that was the corporate PR flacks insisting on it. Maybe they went over the script and they did not want their eccentric billionaire compared to an earlier eccentric billionaire.

Now eventually what could happen is that some of this footage could end up in another documentary that addresses those kinds of things, but the people who filmed this one got access in return for not saying anything negative. Unfortunately, the majority of the people who watch this one are going to be left in the dark about the real story(ies).
 
The episode is already available in the U.K. on demand from the Yesterday channel.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1339389577979555841
View: https://twitter.com/thejackbeyer/status/1339389577979555841


Stratolaunch's massive carrier aircraft, known as the Roc, was on the runway for some low speed taxi tests today. Another box checked ahead of its next flight! @Stratolaunch @NASASpaceflight
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1339399232420134914
View: https://twitter.com/thejackbeyer/status/1339399232420134914


Some photos from today's taxi testing. [thread] @Stratolaunch @NASASpaceflight
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Impressive photo. Yours? That's a very unusual "Kodak Spot" for Mojave.
 
Stratolaunch? Guys, you opened a whole new world for me. I never heard about this company, and as I see, it's quite successful.
 
JacopCooper said:
Stratolaunch? Guys, you opened a whole new world for me. I never heard about this company, and as I see, it's quite successful.
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Successful. No, this is the reincarnation of the original company.
 
JacopCooper said:
Stratolaunch? Guys, you opened a whole new world for me. I never heard about this company, and as I see, it's quite successful.
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No it isn't. Billionaire Paul Allen created the company to launch spacecraft. It was very much an ego-driven project (I think it should have been called "Egolauncher").

(See something I wrote about this back in December 2012: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2198/1 )

Bezos had Blue Origin and Musk had SpaceX, and it was clear that Allen wanted his own rocket company, but he wanted something unique. The origins of the company are probably interesting--somebody sold him a bill of goods, convincing him that a big airplane could launch a big rocket. Nope, the airplane really constrains the size of the rocket, and also makes it almost impossible to upgrade the rocket.

Then there was a sort of rocket comedy as Stratolauncher tried to find a rocket that it could launch. At one point SpaceX was onboard, with a 5-engine rocket (I think it was called the Falcon 5). But then SpaceX dropped out, because the company did not want to compete against itself. I think there was another company onboard for a while (Orbital?), then they dropped out. Then they put out artwork showing the Roc aircraft carrying three small Pegasus rockets. Because the Pegasus launch rate has been something like one launch every 18 months, there was no way anybody would launch three at one time. So that made no sense.

Then Allen died. They flew the plane once, which was really a memorial to the rich guy who built it. Then the company folded. Then it was resurrected and they announced that they were going to use the plane to launch hypersonic research vehicles.* I don't think this makes much sense either, but there's a lot of DoD money going into hypersonics, so that probably gave them some money to keep going, and to keep investors interested. But I don't see how this is going to work long-term. That big airplane is not cheap to keep flying. Count the number of engines. Imagine the insurance costs.




*I might have the chronology a bit wrong, but you can look all that up. Those are the basic facts.
 
blackstar said:
JacopCooper said:
Stratolaunch? Guys, you opened a whole new world for me. I never heard about this company, and as I see, it's quite successful.
Click to expand...


No it isn't. Billionaire Paul Allen created the company to launch spacecraft. It was very much an ego-driven project (I think it should have been called "Egolauncher").

(See something I wrote about this back in December 2012: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2198/1 )

Bezos had Blue Origin and Musk had SpaceX, and it was clear that Allen wanted his own rocket company, but he wanted something unique. The origins of the company are probably interesting--somebody sold him a bill of goods, convincing him that a big airplane could launch a big rocket. Nope, the airplane really constrains the size of the rocket, and also makes it almost impossible to upgrade the rocket.

Then there was a sort of rocket comedy as Stratolauncher tried to find a rocket that it could launch. At one point SpaceX was onboard, with a 5-engine rocket (I think it was called the Falcon 5). But then SpaceX dropped out, because the company did not want to compete against itself. I think there was another company onboard for a while (Orbital?), then they dropped out. Then they put out artwork showing the Roc aircraft carrying three small Pegasus rockets. Because the Pegasus launch rate has been something like one launch every 18 months, there was no way anybody would launch three at one time. So that made no sense.

Then Allen died. They flew the plane once, which was really a memorial to the rich guy who built it. Then the company folded. Then it was resurrected and they announced that they were going to use the plane to launch hypersonic research vehicles.* I don't think this makes much sense either, but there's a lot of DoD money going into hypersonics, so that probably gave them some money to keep going, and to keep investors interested. But I don't see how this is going to work long-term. That big airplane is not cheap to keep flying. Count the number of engines. Imagine the insurance costs.




*I might have the chronology a bit wrong, but you can look all that up. Those are the basic facts.
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No I think you got the timing right :)

I don't think it was the "Falcon 5" (that was the original follow on of the Falcon 1 before Musk was convinced he needed actually get into the 'regular' satellite market and that a 'subscale' LV wouldn't have a market) i seem to recall it only had four engines. Musk wasn't 'on-board' from the start and I seem to recall was 'there' only because he was around trying to drum up investment from Alan for Tesla. It was rather obvious that Musk/SpaceX wasn't going to actually build anything.

People were surprised when the NEXT announcement was for the carry and handling system since you'd normally only start work on that once you already had a rocket :)

SpaceX officially dropped out and Orbital stepped up with what was essentially a "huge" Pegasus (solid) winged booster and a Centaur upper stage, (yes looked as weird as it sounded :) ) and a bit later simply forwarded the Pegasus itself while they "continued to work the design" of the other rocket but it simply wasn't really affordable unless someone else (Alan) footed the bills and he was tapped out with the Roc.

I also understand that it was his impression of White Knight One and Spaceship One that drove him towards the Roc design as he was impressed with Burt Rutan's "concepts" for a "Super-Spaceship" vehicle and all sorts of impressed with how WK/SS turned out. Alan considered sub-orbital "space tourism" a side track hence had no interest in WK2/SS2 and had a general idea of what most folks thought was the 'minimum' size for an air launched orbital rocket. Again hence the Roc but in fact that wasn't really true as you could use something as 'small' as a regular 747 for a decent (for a relative value of 'decent' of course :) ) orbital launch vehicle and frankly a smaller, more optimized design would have been both more affordable and more practical. (Crossbow for example) But by the time this stuff started getting any attention Alan was already committed to Roc and...

I agree that the hypersonic 'focus' is weird but in context it actually makes some sense given the new 'owner' (and investors) figured they had a pretty solid 'in' on the program with some high-placed "friends". Toss in the fact that the DoD is going to be spending money and it's not really a 'win-win' but it can be argued it's not going to lose all that much either.. I have a lot of doubts that Roc's going to be all the prominent as a testing platform but it makes good 'press' and keeps things moving so probably a couple more flights and maybe a captive carry but most likely hangered again to save costs and they will probably use a converted 747 in the end.

Or I could be all wet and "Talon" is actually a test vehicle for the future version of the TR/Black Ice Spaceplane and they are fooling us all :)

Randy
 
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ORIGINAL CAPTION: Talon-A’s upper skin is made from Out-of-Autoclave Bismaleimide carbon composite materials, a high temperature thermoset resin (Image: Stratolaunch)

California-based company Stratolaunch is developing testbeds to provide easier and cheaper access to hypersonic flight testing, the first of which is Talon-A.

The Talon vehicles will launch from the Stratolaunch carrier aircraft, which has a wingspan of 385ft (117m) and was originally developed as an aerial launch platform for satellites.

Talon-A is a reusable, autonomous, liquid rocket-powered Mach 6-capable hypersonic vehicle with a length of 28ft (8.5m), a wingspan of 14ft (4.3m) and a launch weight of approximately 6,500 lbs (2,948kg). The vehicle has been designed to provide more than 60 seconds of hypersonic flight test conditions and then glide back for an autonomous landing on a conventional runway.

Talon-A is planned to be ready for use next year and will be able to fly 12 missions a year.
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www.aerospacetestinginternational.com

How engineers test and develop hypersonic aircraft and weapons | Aerospace Testing International

Investment and innovation in test instrumentation and data acquisition is being made so engineers can develop hypersonic weapons and aircraft
www.aerospacetestinginternational.com www.aerospacetestinginternational.com
 
Just a simple pipe dream, start up the x33 venture star program again and launch it from the stratolaunch.
You can scale up the X33 startweight to 250 tons, so who nows it wil make it to orbit.
 

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