MOJAVE, Calif. —Stratolaunch Systems is almost 40 percent through assembly of its massive carrier aircraft and is on track for a 2016 first flight goal, according to Scaled Composites President Kevin Mickey.
Mickey said the company has also built about 80 percent of the aircraft’s composites by weight. Critical to its 2016 goal, Mickey said, is assembly of the “center-main wing” on the 385-foot wingspan carrier aircraft, which is to eventually launch a multi-stage booster into space from 30,000 feet altitude. The company also wants a first launch of its multi-stage booster by 2018.
“I cannot wait for the day that I stand on the side of the runway and watch this thing take off,” Mickey told reporters on Jan. 21 in a tour of one of Stratolaunch’s hangars.
Stratolaunch’s entire air launch system is composed of four components: carrier aircraft, multi-stage booster, a mating and integration system and an orbital payload. Scaled Composites is building the carrier aircraft while Orbital Sciences [ORB] is designing, assembling and testing the 120-foot long multi-stage booster. Orbital is to also provide program management, systems engineering, space launch mission design, system integration and integrated support for the entire ALV. Orbital on Jan. 26 declined to comment on its booster progress.
Stratolaunch is composed of Northrop Grumman [NOC] subsidiary Scaled Composites and Orbital.
Mickey believes Stratolaunch will reach its 2016 first flight goal due to a lot of concurrent design and build-systems installation taking place while composite structures are installed. Mickey said Stratolaunch employs very simple methodologies for doing tasks like wire runs.
“We can have a lot of ants on the candy bar, if you will, by having so many different work stations established on the program,” Mickey said. “We have technicians and wiring experts working side-by-side while composite structures are still (being installed).”
The carrier aircraft is set to weigh more than 1.3 million pounds, which Stratolaunch calls the largest aircraft ever constructed. Stratolaunch says the carrier aircraft will be able to fly over 1,000 nautical miles to reach an optimal launch point. Upon completion of assembly, the carrier aircraft will look like two large 747-400s mated together at the wings.
The multi-stage booster will sit in-between the two aircraft “bodies,” below the horizontal wing and will protrude about two feet forward past the fuselages, Mickey said. The carrier vehicle will be flown by three people, Mickey said: two pilots and one operator.
Mickey said because the carrier aircraft requirements include the ability to launch a booster that would deliver 13,500 pounds into low earth orbit (LEO), Stratolaunch designed the aircraft to be able to carry a 550,000 pound booster. Mickey said Jan. 21 the carrier aircraft can take off from a standard commercial runway length of 12,500 feet, but said Jan. 22 in an email that the aircraft would not fly into or taxi around “commercial runways” with a multi-stage booster.
Another requirement, he said, was the ability to fly 1,000 nautical miles, loiter for an hour and land with a fully-loaded rocket in case the launch was aborted. The goal, Mickey said, is to launch the rocket at a gamma of 22-25 degrees. The carrier aircraft also has a requirement of operating for 20 years, Mickey said.
Mikey said Stratolaunch purchased two 747-400s from United Airlines [UAL] specifically for weight capacity of the body gear and the performance of the motors from the 400s. The carrier aircraft is to be powered by six Pratt & Whitney PW4056 engines found on 747-400 models. Pratt & Whitney is a division of United Technologies Corp. [UTX]
Stratolaunch built two new hangars here for the carrier aircraft. The company opened an 88,000-square foot fabrication facility in October 2012, according to a statement. A second, 103,000-square foot hangar, which opened in March 2013, is where the carrier aircraft is being constructed.