Stratolaunch, a company that aims to launch hypersonic vehicles from the world's largest airplane, aced its first rocket-powered flight on Saturday (March 9) with a historic test over the Pacific Ocean.
The massive Stratolaunch carrier plane "Roc" launched its expendable prototype vehicle Talon-A1 (T-A1) during a test flight that took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California's Mojave Desert. The dart-shaped T-A1 vehicle was under the center of the Roc's vast 385-foot (117 meters) wing during the takeoff.
TA-1 is an advanced air-launched vehicle designed to serve as a private hypersonic testbed that launches from the huge, dual-fuselage Roc carrier plane, which was built by Scaled Composites for Stratolaunch. Once achieving sufficient altitude above 20,000 feet, the curve-nosed hypersonic vehicle is dropped from "Roc's" center wing and its Ursa Major-built Hadley rocket engine is designed to ignite to propel vehicles at superfast hypersonic speeds.
