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The world's largest aircraft successfully completed the first test flight

Date：2019-04-26

"Stratato" completed its first test flight in California on the 13th.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, the US space company Strato Launch Systems announced on the 13th that the world's largest aircraft developed by the company successfully completed its first test flight in California.According to reports, the two-body aircraft named "Stratato" has a dual-body design with six engines, with a total weight of nearly 230 tons and a wingspan of about 117 meters.At 6:58 on the 13th, US Western Time (21:58 on the 13th, Beijing time), the plane took off from the Mojave Aerospace Port in California and flew over the Mojave Desert for two and a half hours. The top speed reached approximately every hour. It is 304 kilometers high and has a maximum altitude of nearly 5,200 meters. It then returns to the Mojave Aerospace Port for a safe landing.The communique said that the mission team conducted standard flight test exercises, performed various flight control operations to calibrate speed, and tested flight control systems, including yaw maneuvering, dive, pull-up, and stable heading. The aircraft conducted a simulated landing exercise at an altitude of up to 4,500 meters. The pilot evaluated aircraft performance and handling quality before successfully returning to the Mojave Aerospace Port.Jean-Floyd, CEO of Strato Launch Systems, said it was a wonderful first flight. This flight takes the company's mission a step further and will provide a flexible alternative to rocket ground launch systems in the future.

In order to compete for the commercial satellite launch market, the late US Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen founded Strato Launch Systems in 2011 to build the aircraft into a rocket launch platform. According to reports, "Stratato" can carry different types of rockets from the ground in the future, as a mobile launch platform, allowing the rocket to ignite, launch, disengage from the atmosphere at high altitude, and put the satellite into orbit. The aircraft's enhanced center wing can support multiple launch vehicles. This approach is more accurate, faster, and less costly than traditional ground launch methods.Thomas Chubyxing, deputy director of the NASA Science Mission Council, said on social media Twitter that the aircraft set a new record. This first flight was a historic milestone created by the mission team of Strato Launch Systems. In the future, I will travel to the edge of space and beyond.

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