Submission Statement

Stratolaunch has been around for a while. Way back in 2011, they were a contender with SpaceX to launch the earliest iterations of the Falcon rockets. While this aircraft was initially developed to launch rockets into space. Presumably, that hasn't worked out, but they see another opportunity - hypersonic research. China seems to have taken a lead in that, which must be funneling US DoD money in that direction.

I wonder will anyone ever crack the nut that is a successful horizontal space launch from aircraft? Virgin Galactic tried in recent weeks and failed. Using this approach for small payloads of 500 kg or so seems most likely to succeed. Among the many problems this approach has, is that building rockets (that are mainly fuel containers for their small payloads) that can take both horizontal and vertical stresses is hard.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh:

Submission Statement

Stratolaunch has been around for a while. Way back in 2011, they were a contender with SpaceX to launch the earliest iterations of the Falcon rockets. While this aircraft was initially developed to launch rockets into space. Presumably, that hasn't worked out, but they see another opportunity - hypersonic research. China seems to have taken a lead in that, which must be funneling US DoD money in that direction.

I wonder will anyone ever crack the nut that is a successful horizontal space launch from aircraft? Virgin Galactic tried in recent weeks and failed. Using this approach for small payloads of 500 kg or so seems most likely to succeed. Among the many problems this approach has, is that building rockets (that are mainly fuel containers for their small payloads) that can take both horizontal and vertical stresses is hard.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/10cmgjj/the_stratolaunch_roc_the_largest_aircraft_ever/j4gei3t/

A flying answer in search of a question

Seems to me like the question is, "How can we get something up to enough speed and altitude that it can be picked up by a rotavator?"

It had a good answer to start off with

The initial development of it was to airlaunch a variant of the now worlds leading current launch vehicle Falcon 9

SpaceX then decided it would focus purely on the logistical needs of its ground launched Falcon 9 as the 2 versions were quickly becoming vastly more different in design to make it feasible

Stratolaunch then had other rocket concepts that it could take but none of them stuck.

It's a victim of competition, its biggest rival is Virign Orbit with its much more feasibly converted 747 instead of a brand new aircraft

Launches from aircraft to orbit have been going on for years actually.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/launch/L-1011-pegasus.html

At first I was thinking maybe this would be a replacement for the big Ukrainian plane AN225 that was blown up but no. They should build one of those next.

"Largest" is a bit of a vague term. Aircraft are usually measured by their maximum takeoff weight and, from what I can find, this one's is 590,000 kg compared to the 225's 640,000 kg. They mean longest wingspan.

No denigration of the subject aircraft is present in this comment.

Yep it's the famous 'law of the excluded middle'. The B747 is almost as capable and infinitely cheaper because they're ubiquitous. SpaceX has the ability to lift payloads that are financially interesting. This thing was in between the two and was knowable from the start.

I think Paul Allen was a great man but this was not his greatest moment

I could be wrong, but I’ve always understood that they measure aircraft size, in terms of wingspan. I’ve never heard of takeoff weight being used as a ranking measure, in terms of size.

Just randomly saw the Virgin Orbit 747 land and taxi at Fort Lauderdale airport the other day

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I think he might have paid for his own launch vehicle development, but he died so they scrapped that?

You're both right. Take-off weight is an important measure since cargo (passengers count in this context) is often measured that way.

Wingspan and, to a lesser degree, length, of the aircraft are often considered, too. Sometimes when they say 'largest' they talk about the width or diameter of the fuselage, as well, but that's usually in relation to an aircraft designed specifically to carry certain things. The Super Guppy and other cargo aircraft would fall into this category.

It really is context-dependent.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/antonov-an-225-largest-plane-destroyed-ukraine-scli-intl/index.html

So according to that article, it's currently the largest until Russia is forced to pay to restore the 225.

Well as an aviation professional I can tell you that more or less everything is based on MTOW. If you're more interested in wingspan, that's of course absolutely fine. The only time that tends to come into play day-to-day is whether a plane can fit down a certain taxiway or a certain parking position or not.

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Are they still flying this thing? I though the Stratolaunch concept was scrapped.

Still a really impressive airplane either way.

Somehow I doubt Russia is going to be able to afford to pay for restoration of much of anything.

I believe that the people managing his estate sold off the aircraft and the program

Russia without the current regime would be much, much richer.

Oligarchs get their money from somewhere.

I think Germany finished paying reparation debts in 2010.

Russia could take the same amount of time or much, much, less to pay for rebuilding Ukraine.

It all depends who is in charge and where Russia's money goes.

one of the main issue is that air launching requires a lot of the rocket you are launching to be protection from the different stresses (in terms of direction) of flight.

It might turn out that we can do better but currently airlaunched rockets are inferior to ground launched rockets.

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I like little try at a bitch slap at Virgin for failing their first flight and pretending they are dead because of it. So stupid.

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never knew the vehicle itself had the name 'roc'

not sure how big rocs in mythology were, but the largest rocs in dnd have a wingspan of 270ft compared to the stratolaunches 385. rather fitting name i think

The statement about hypersonics might be misleading

China uses hypersonic boost glide vehicles, basically a rocket that propels to hypersonic speeds, nothing new, hypersonic speeds have been achieved in the 40's already when looking at rockets reaching orbit

The US has two working prototypes for a hypersonic cruise missile, which are much much more sophisticated because it uses air breathing engines to propel the missile

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>>basically a rocket that propels to hypersonic speeds, nothing new

I'm not an expert on any of this, but many US military figures have commented the Chinese craft exceeds US capabilities.

Also, it can stay in orbit in space with nuclear weapons for prolonged periods of time, before re-entering Earth at hypersonic speeds - so this isn't something that anyone has been able to do before.

The X-37 is literally able to stay in orbit for a very long time, with the ability to carry nukes. It was first introduced in 2010, so it's not something never done before lile you said

https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/america-may-have-just-taken-the-lead-in-hypersonic-cruise-missile-technology/

>>The X-37

Yes, but it glides in to land at a leisurely pace, and would be easy to shoot down.

The danger with craft at hypersonic speeds is that they are almost impossible to shoot down or defend against.

What? You know that it can drop nukes if it needs to, there is no need to re arm them because those are nuked we are talking about

Also, if china uses a missile, it needs to produce a new one, the US could drop the load AND make it land, reload and take off again

https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/its-a-myth-that-hypersonic-missiles-cant-be-stopped-because-theyre-fast/

Hypersonic missiles can be intercepted, it will get easier with laser weapons

But wouldn't this vehicle also be capable of lifting much heavier payloads to the stratosphere than a simple 747?

Also, Lets see his card.

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Lol the only reason I came to the comments is to find out why this thing exists. Glad to see I'm not the only one.

Is the word "large" used in aviation to refer to takeoff weight?

Technically anti-satellite missiles are also launched from aircraft into orbit.

Yes. A "large aircraft" for example is, in the regulations, anything over 5,700 kg MTOW. Any time anyone refers to size, it would be MTOW that one would think they're referring to. Otherwise we'd say "wingspan" or "length".

how much water could that bad boi carry? cali wild fire season is gonna be lit this year-bet.

Well for years the worlds largest airplane (as it was popularly known) was the spruce goose .... Measured by wingspan.

It held the title till the stratolauncher.

Using this logic, the space shuttle would be the largest aircraft, would it not? I get it, though, wingspan and takeoff weight are arbitrary methods of gauging an aircraft’s largeness.

I was a crew chief on C-5s, so I’m obviously biased toward wingspan. They’re all big, and it’s a small miracle they can fly in the air at all.

Well I can speak for commercial aviation, where takeoff weight does have a few non-arbitrary consequences such as what sort of approaches and turns you can make and how much wake you produce. Also, wingspan has already reached its maximum in terms of what can fit in an airport, so now it's just about how heavy planes can get within that limit. But yes, it's as arbitrary as anything.

The space shuttle would be biggest but I'd argue it took off with a rocket, which isn't lifting off using the air but rather in spite of it. Then on the way down, it could only glide and not support itself straight and level. Again, as arbitrary as you like. It's all a miracle they can fly!