World’s Largest Plane Serves As Launching Pad For Hypersonic Test Aircraft

Startolaunch, an aerospace company, is furthering the commercialization of hypersonic flights with its research. To do so, it has employed the Roc carrier plane—the world’s largest aircraft—to help it take off toward this future.
 
The Roc carrier is a behemoth plane with a wing span reaching 385 feet. To put that into scale, that’s just over the width of an average football field. Its center wing pylon has been designed to launch smaller aircraft like Stratolaunch’s 28-foot-long Talon-A, which it tested last week.
 
Stratolaunch was first set up by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen who planned to launch rockets into space from the air. Unfortunately, Allen passed away just six months before the first test flight in 2019 could take off.

Then, last year, it was over by Cerberus Capital Management, and its goal shifted to an air-launch platform with hypersonic research as its primary purpose.
 
Its latest field test saw the Roc soar to 23,000 ft before the hypersonic craft was launched over the Mojave desert in California. Once it was out in the air, Talon-A reached an impressive speed of Mach 5 before it autonomously landed on a runway. 

Roc landed at 1:29 p.m. and our team is busy analyzing the data gathered during today’s flight! pic.twitter.com/JIF0Q94WJe

— Stratolaunch (@Stratolaunch) October 28, 2022

This would mark the vehicle’s eighth flight in total. Startolaunch then collected the data from the test on the aerodynamic loads of the vehicle.
 
In the coming months, the company aims to hold more test flights, including one where Talon-A will be released over the Pacific Ocean as it seeks to one day reach a speed of Mach 6.
 
The tests will all work towards offering commercial flights on the Talon in 2023.
 
 
 
[via New Atlas and Space.com, cover image via Stratolaunch/PR Newswire]