Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Stratolaunch Gets Contract With AFRL

Mojave-based aerospace developer ,a href="https://www.stratolaunch.com">Stratolaunch reports that it has received a research contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), to help assess feasibility of hypersonic flight tests of a wide range of Air Force experiments and payloads on a frequent and routine basis. Financial details of that contract were not announced by the company. The company said the contract is in partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton. Stratolaunch appears to be shifting into hypersonic flight testing, and away from its original aim to become a space launch platform. The company had been competing against similar technology from Virgin Orbit for deploying rockets from aircraft, as well as generally against such companies as Rocket Lab for delivering small satellites into space. Stratolaunch had been founded by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan as part of the billionaire space race; however, Allen died in 2018, and the company was sold in 2019.