New Livery Carries The 'Stratolaunch' Logo

Stratolaunch Systems founder Paul Allen has put his mark on the fuselage of the enormous airplane being flight tested as a horizontal launch system.

Allen tweeted photos this week of the Stratolauncher, being built by Scaled Composites, emblazoned with "Stratolaunch: A Paul G. Allen Company" on the left fuselage. The Scaled Composites logo is on the tail.

Geekwire reports that while there had been hopes of flight testing the airplane this summer, there are still three taxi tests on the schedule, delaying the first flight of the aircraft into the fall at the earliest.

In August, Stratolaunch announced its new family of launch vehicles that will enter regular service starting in 2020. The company’s unique air-launch system will use the world’s largest aircraft as a mobile launch platform, capable of deploying launch vehicles that will carry satellites to multiple orbits and inclinations on a single mission. "With these new vehicles, Stratolaunch is poised to make access to space convenient, affordable, and routine," the company said in a press release.

According to the company, the Stratolaunch plane is the largest in the world. But it takes off and lands from a runway just like any other aircraft. Once it reaches a cruising altitude of 35,000 ft, one or more launch vehicles are released, allowing for rapid constellation deployment to different inclinations. As the launch vehicles ascend into orbit, the Stratolaunch plane heads back to the runway to reload for its next mission.

(Image from Twitter via Paul Allen)

FMI: Source report, www.stratolaunch.com