Stratolaunch Systems LLC is an American aerospace company based in Seattle (the biggest city in Washington state, USA) whose main objective is to make a gigantic plane carrier that will be able to be launched from a high altitude. If the project succeeds, it will overtake the Antonov An-225 Mriya as the world’s biggest plane. Stratolaunch Systems LLC was founded in 2011 by Paul Allen (the co-founder of Microsoft) and Burt Rutan, the influential and creative designer of Space Ship One ( an experimental rocket-powered spaceplane that first flew in 2003 ). The aircraft is built for Stratolaunch Systems LLC by Scaled Composites, another company founded by Burt Rutan but currently owned by Northrop Grumman. Paul Allen died in late 2018, but the project still continued. In mid-2019, Stratolaunch Systems LLC underwent a change of ownership and its assets were put up for sale. Cerebrus Capital Management bought the company in December 2019 and the new CEO, Jean Floyd, announced that they were expecting 2020 to be a great year for the project. The plane is an impressive sight, possessing 6 Pratt & Whitney PW4000 turbofan engines and an enormous wingspan of 117 meters, 28.6 meters longer than that of the Antonov An-225 Mriya. But, sadly, in December 2019, Stratolaunch Systems LLC announced that they were going to focus on offering high-speed flight test ( a branch of aeronautical engineering where the main aim is to gather information about the earth’s atmosphere and to test a plane’s functionality ) services. So we don’t know whether this plane is going to actually fly or if it’s just going to stay an experiment. 23 of March 2020.
For more information go to : https://www.stratolaunch.com/
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