Photo credit: The Sun
Stratolaunch LLC announced that they have successfully completed its fourth flight test of the carrier aircraft, called “Roc”. It’s currently the world’s largest aircraft by wingspan (385-feet) and it flew for 1 hour, 43 minutes over the Mojave Desert and reached an altitude of 15,000-feet. This latest flight helped the pilots further prepare the carrier aircraft to support launches of its upcoming hypersonic testbed vehicle, Talon-A. Read more for two videos and additional information.
The fourth test flight is an important milestone, since the Talon-A vehicles, launched from the Roc carrier aircraft, are rocket-powered, autonomous, reusable testbeds carrying customizable payloads at speeds above Mach 5. This hypersonic flight environment is crucial for scientific research, technological development, and component demonstration. With that said, the company aims to begin hypersonic flight testing later this year.
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Today’s successful flight demonstrates and validates improvements to the carrier aircraft’s systems and overall flight performance. The full landing gear retraction and extension brings the carrier aircraft closer to operational status, a milestone that is necessary to ready the aircraft for Talon-A separation and hypersonic flight tests later this year,” said Dr. Zachary Krevor, Stratolaunch President and Chief Operating Officer.
