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“Stratolaunch”
U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to Support Stratolaunch Talon-A Hypersonic Flight Test
Stratolaunch’s Roc aircraft carries the first Talon-A separation test vehicle during its eighth flight test on October 28, 2022. (Credit: Stratolaunch)

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.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • November 15, 2022
Stratolaunch Roc Aircraft Reaches New Heights in Seventh Flight
Roc takes off from the Mojave Air and Space Port on April 29, 2021. (Credit: Stratolaunch)

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. 

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • June 17, 2022
Stratolaunch Debuts Talon-A Separation Test Vehicle
Stratolaunch’s Talon-A separation test vehicle, TA-0. (Image Credit: Domenic Moen/Stratolaunch)

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.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • May 27, 2022
Interview: Kimberly Slater of Draper Laboratory Discusses the Challenges of Hypersonic Flight
Kimberly Slater (Credit: Draper Laboratory)

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. 

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • May 20, 2022
Stratolaunch Welcomes New Officers to Executive Leadership Team
Roc aircraft (Credit: Stratolaunch)

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.

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  • Parabolic Arc
  • May 17, 2022