Stratolaunch Begins Building 'Mothership' Production Facility

At a site in California, construction works are already on their way on a new production facility that will assemble Stratolaunch Systems' massive carrier aircraft. The company is building an aircraft/rocket combo similar to what Virgin Galactic is currently using.

The design calls for the creation of one of the largest, twin-hull aircraft ever developed. The flying city will carry a medium-lift delivery system attached to its underbelly, and will release its cargo at very high altitudes. The rocket would then use its stage engines to achieve escape velocity.

Investors decided to trust this system because it has the potential to make rocket and satellite launches a lot cheaper than possible with current technologies. However, developing the aircraft that will carry the rocket is the most important, complex and expensive part.

The California installation will be used specifically for this purpose. The hangar is being built at the Mojave Air and Space Port, and construction began back on January 20, Space reports.

Huntsville, Alabama-based Stratolaunch is funded and supported by Microsoft co-Founder Paul Allen, who contributed $200 million, innovative aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, SpaceX, Scaled Composites and Dynetics, Inc.

“Today marks the start of an exciting journey for us,” the CEO and President of Stratolaunch Systems, Gary Wentz, said in a statement, during a ceremony held yesterday, January 23, at the construction site.

“Over the next year, we will have a visible presence in the Antelope Valley with two new facilities and a pair of 747-400 aircraft which will undergo salvage to supply parts and subsystems for integration into our carrier aircraft. We look forward to many years of great work in Mojave,” he explained.

Current plans call for the construction of an 88,000-square-foot (8,200-square-meter) main building at the Mojave spaceport, adjacent to a 92,640-square-foot (8,600-square-meter) hangar that will be used for testing the new aircraft.

The new venture plans to construct the aircraft with the largest wingspan in the world, larger than a football field (380 feet, or 115 meters). The behemoth will be powered by six Boeing 747 engines (three on each wing), and will also boost a twin-hull construction.

Between the two bodies of the airplane, engineers will install SpaceX's multi-stage Falcon 9 rocket. The delivery system will be able to carry either a manned or an unmanned spacecraft, or another type of cargo, such as for example commercial satellites – a total of 13,500 pounds (6,123 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit.