Paul Allen + Elon Musk + Burt Rutan = Strato Launch - The pioneers of commercial spaceflight are at it again; this time combining the world’s largest airplane with an air-launched orbital booster, taking the concept of SpaceShipOne from suborbital to Low Earth Orbit.
Requiring a runway 12,000 feet long to take off or land, it will operate from a large airport or a spaceport, such as Kennedy Space Center, and will be able to fly up to 1,300 nautical miles to the payload’s launch point, according to the advance materials provided by Allen’s investment company, Vulcan.
The multistage booster rocket will be manufactured by California-based Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX and led by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk.
Plans call for a first flight within five years.
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