spacetoday.net: Stratolaunch aircraft flies for the first time

Stratolaunch aircraft flies for the first time

Posted: Sun, Apr 14, 2019, 10:39 AM ET (1439 GMT)
Stratolaunch plane first flight (Stratolaunch)

The giant aircraft built by Stratolaunch as an air-launch platform made its first flight Saturday amid question about the future of the overall effort. The plane took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port at 6:58 am PDT (0958 EDT, 1358 GMT) Saturday and remained aloft for two and a half hours before landing back in Mojave. The plane handled well during the flight, Stratolaunch said afterwards, but offered no information on the future of the flight test program. In January, Stratolaunch ended development of its own launch vehicle that would have been launched from the plane, and for now only plans to use the plane for launches of the small Pegasus XL rocket.