WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA and Northrop Grumman will hold a Launch Readiness Review early next week at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ensure preparations are continuing on track for the launch of the agency’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, satellite. ICON will be launched by Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket which will be carried aloft by the L-1011 Stargazer aircraft taking off from the Skid Strip at […]
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“Stargazer”
Air-launched boosters (Credit: Stratolaunch)
Wired has an entertaining story by Steven Levy about what Paul Allen and the team at Scaled Composites have been doing with Stratolaunch, whose enormous carrier plane nicknamed the Roc but also know as Composite Goose, Carbon Goose, Birdzilla and Stratosaurus.
Sunset from the Mojave Air and Space Port on Oct. 30, 2014. (Credit: Douglas Messier)
At some point in the next six months, the Mojave Air and Space Port could experience something that not happened here in 13 long years: an actual spaceflight.
Richard Branson is predicting that Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity could reach space on a flight test from Mojave by December. For once, his prediction does not appear to be based on unrealistic hopes, the need to reassure customers about delays, or a complete misunderstanding of what is happening on the ground here.
In other words, it’s actually plausible. Whether it will happen on that schedule…that’s another question. Flight test is notoriously unpredictable and very tough on timetables.
Stratolaunch carrier aircraft rolled out of its hangar for the first time. (Credit: Stratolaunch)
By Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Checking my messages on Wednesday at LAX after a long flight from back east, I was startled to learn that Paul Allen’s ginormous Stratolaunch aircraft had been rolled out of its hangar for the first time in Mojave while I was in transit.
I had been expecting some official roll-out ceremony later this year ala SpaceShipTwo where the press and public could get a good look at the twin fuselage, WhiteKnightTwo-on-steroids air-launch platform.
@OrbtialATK L1011 Stargazer airplane is undergoing a new look to support upcoming #Pegasus launches in 2016 and 2017 pic.twitter.com/XcW8POvj9r — Orbital ATK (@OrbitalATK) April 17, 2015 For anyone at the Mojave Air and Space Port who was wondering where Stargazer went, here’s your answer. It’s been off getting re-branded in the wake of the ATK and Orbital Sciences Corporation merger.
Orbital Sciences Corporation opened up its Stargazer launch aircraft for public tours last week during Plane Crazy Saturday at the Mojave Air and Space Port. It offered a rare opportunity to see inside the airplane.