Test Flights Of The World’s Largest Plane Begin Next Year

Back in 2011 Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen started work on a project to build the largest airplane in the world, joining him in this project are several other big names one of which is Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The plane is called Stratolaunch and it’s being constructed at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The company, Stratolaunch Systems, aims to begin test flights of the world’s largest plane next year.

The main idea behind developing an airplane of this size is to conduct air launches of satellite-carrying rockets. Air launches will allow rockets to take off even if there’s bad weather and since they don’t have to blast off from a complete stop they’ll be more fuel efficient.

Moreover the plane can be used again and again for launching rockets, it will also provide flexibility to engineers and scientists who can select the best location to launch the rockets from.

By every stretch of the imagination this is going to be a huge airplane. It’s going to have a 385 foot wingspan, to put things in perspective it will be 123 feet wider than the Airbus A380’s wingspan which happens to be the largest passenger plane in the world. It will require 12,000 feet of runway to take off which is significantly more than the up to 8,000 feet of runway that most commercial planes need on regular flights.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: rockets, satellites