MOJAVE, Calif., Nov. 14, 2022 (Stratolaunch PR) — Stratolaunch, LLC is pleased to announce a contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to support the flight test of the company’s first expendable Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle, TA-1. Stratolaunch anticipates flying TA-1 in the first quarter of 2023.

MOJAVE, Calif. (Stratolaunch PR) — Stratolaunch announces the completion of its seventh flight test of Roc, the world’s largest flying aircraft. The aircraft flew for 3 hours and 1 minute over the Mojave Desert and reached an altitude of 27,000 feet (8200 meters), a new altitude record for the aircraft. 

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

MOJAVE, Calif. — Stratolaunch’s giant Roc aircraft’s sixth flight test ended more than two hours earlier than planned on Thursday due to an undisclosed problem.

MOJAVE, Calif. (Stratolaunch PR) — Stratolaunch is excited to announce the public debut of its structurally complete Talon-A test vehicle, TA-0, in this week’s issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology. This first Talon-A vehicle will be used to test and validate Roc’s release system and characterize the separation dynamics of the Talon vehicle. In addition to the first view of the vehicle by itself, the article also includes recent photos of the first mating of TA-0 to Roc’s pylon located on the center wing.

by David Bullock
Staff Writer

Parabolic Arc conducted a Q&A with Kimberly Slater, the Commercial and Science Space Lead at Draper Laboratory, about the guidance, navigational and control software she has worked on for Stratolaunch’s Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle.

Tell me a little about yourself, your engineer and career background and how you got to work for Draper.

Right now I currently lead our civil commercial science space work at Draper, but my history before Draper was all in human space flight. My engineering degree is in man machine interface design. And everything I did before Draper was building, developing, testing, and flying scientific experiments on the space shuttle and space station. So, I did everything from design and build to writing software, writing the interface training manuals to the software—the procedure that the astronauts use on orbit—and then I did crew training for both the American and Russian crew for both space station and shuttle and then mission support and then mission control centers in both Moscow and Houston to support the mission. You know that whole ‘Houston we have a problem’ question when things on orbit and any anomaly has happened during that real time fast paced mission support. 

MOJAVE, Calif. (Stratolaunch PR) — Stratolaunch LLC is pleased to announce it has appointed two new executives to its corporate leadership team. Jackson Kemper, III joins as Chief Revenue Officer overseeing the company’s business and customer contract strategies. Mary Normand joins the team as Chief Financial Officer, managing the company’s financial actions. Their appointments are effective immediately.

MOJAVE, Calif. (Stratolaunch PR) — Stratolaunch announces the successful completion of its fifth flight test of Roc, the world’s largest flying aircraft. The aircraft flew for 4 hours and 58 minutes over the Mojave Desert and reached an altitude of 22,500 feet (6858 m). 

DENVER, March 23, 2022 (Ursa Major PR) — Ursa Major, America’s only independent pure-play rocket propulsion company today announced the delivery of “Hadley” engines to two different customers for very different applications—hypersonics and space launch. Hadley is an American-made oxygen-rich staged combustion engine, the type of system preferred by the world’s most advanced space programs. The engine is now in full production, with 30 expected to be delivered this year.

MOJAVE, Calif., March 24, 2022 (Stratolaunch PR) – Stratolaunch is pleased to announce Dr. Zachary Krevor, a 20-year aerospace veteran and President and COO of Stratolaunch LLC, has ascended to the role of President and Chief Executive Officer. His appointment is effective immediately.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

MOJAVE, Calif. — Stratolaunch’s Roc — the world’s largest airplane by wing span at 385 ft (117.3 m) — flew for the fourth time on Thursday. In a sign of just how complicated the massive air-launch platform is to fly, one of the main objectives of this flight test was to retract and lower the plane’s landing gear at altitude for the first time ever.