Billionaire Paul Allen, investor and philanthropist who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, introduced today a new project: Stratolaunch Systems promising to provide “any orbit…any time.”
The announcement today brought together, once again, Allen with maverick aerospace designer, Burt Rutan.
Allen and Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne was the first privately-funded, manned rocket ship to fly beyond earth’s atmosphere, are now developing a revolutionary approach to space transportation: an air-launch system to provide orbital access to space with greater safety, cost-effectiveness and flexibility, according to a press statement.
Allen’s new company, Stratolaunch Systems, will build a mobile launch system with three primary components:
•A carrier aircraft, developed by Scaled Composites, the aircraft manufacturer and assembler founded by Rutan. It will be the largest aircraft ever flown.
•A multi-stage booster, manufactured by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies;
•A state-of-the-art mating and integration system allowing the carrier aircraft to safely carry a booster weighing up to 490,000 pounds. It will be built by Dynetics, a leader in the field of aerospace engineering.
According to a press statement, Stratolaunch Systems will bring airport-like operations to the launch of commercial and government payloads and, eventually, human missions. Plans call for a first flight within five years.
To lead the Stratolaunch Systems team, Allen picked veteran NASA official, Gary Wentz, to become Stratolaunch Systems CEO and President.
Taking part in the press event today, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, also a Stratolaunch board member, joined Allen and Rutan.
“We believe this technology has the potential to someday make spaceflight routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground launched rockets,” Griffin noted in a press statement. “Our system will also provide the flexibility to launch from a large variety of locations.”
The plane will be built in a Stratolaunch hangar which will soon be under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
Commenting on the announcement today, Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Galactic said: “I very much welcome today’s announcement from Paul and Burt. It takes me back to the exciting conversations the three of us had in 2004 when we first started talking about commercialising SpaceShipOne technology. We’ve come a long way since then; WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo are built and flying and we have nearly 500 private individuals and science researchers signed up and ready to fly,” Branson said.
“The potential of the industry we are leading is immense but will depend on the continuing emergence of truly safe, affordable and transformative technologies. Burt and Paul’s record in that respect is unmatched. I hope that in due course, in partnership with Stratolaunch and others, we will be able to repeat the pattern that has worked so spectacularly well in the suborbital sphere, for orbital spaceflight,” Branson said.
By Leonard David