World's Largest Aircraft Goes Supersonic In First Powered Flight

An anonymous reader quotes a report from GeekWire: Chalk up another milestone for Stratolaunch, the air-launch venture created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen: The company's mammoth airplane deployed a winged test vehicle for its first rocket-powered flight. Stratolaunch's single-use TA-1 test vehicle blazed a trail for future reusable hypersonic test vehicles that are expected to help the U.S. military catch up on one of the frontiers of aerial combat. TA-1 went supersonic, according to Zachary Krevor, Stratolaunch's president and CEO -- but based on his comments, it may not have quite hit the hypersonic standard of five times the speed of sound. 'While I can't share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached due to proprietary agreements with our customers, we are pleased to share that in addition to meeting all primary and customer objectives of the flight, we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers,' Krevor said in a news release.

Today's test flight took place in the skies above California's Mojave Air and Space Port, where Stratolaunch keeps its twin-fuselage Roc airplane. Roc is the world's biggest operational aircraft, with a wingspan of 385 feet. It's designed to serve as a flying launch pad for rocket-powered vehicles like the TA-1 and its successors. The air-launch concept makes it possible for launch missions to be flown from any airport with a runway that's big enough to accommodate Roc. It's similar to the concept that was used back in 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight with financial backing from Paul Allen. This flight was the 14th test mission for Roc, coming after an unpowered separation test of its TA-0 vehicle and two captive-carry test flights for TA-1. Today's test also marked the first in-flight use of Ursa Major's Hadley rocket engine. The primary test objectives included a safe release of TA-1, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude and a controlled splashdown into the Pacific.

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