Oct 102016
Some news about Stratolaunch:
Orbital ATK and Stratolaunch partner to offer competitive launch opportunities
So far so good. But the artwork included is a little puzzling:
That’s one Stratolaunch carrier aircraft carrying three Pegasus space launch vehicles. Ummm… how often is the capacity to ripple-fire small satellites going to pop up?
In the early 1990’s, OSC looked at a launcher that was kinda-sorta three Pegasus boosters strapped side-by side, carried by a giant new aircraft designed by Scaled Composites. That made a measure of sense, but this new concept does not seem to be something that would be needed. Unless, of course, those are meant for military purposes… launching a number of small recon satellites onto similar orbits, perhaps. Or perhaps those Pegasus boosters are packing warheads of some kind…