The Stratolaunch aircraft is the world’s largest plane by wingspan, measuring 385 feet. It is 238 feet from nose to tail and stands 50 feet tall from the ground to the top of the vertical tail.
The carrier plane is designed to launch rockets into orbit from an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100 meters).
The Stratolaunch was created in 2011 by billionaire Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. Allen teamed up with Scaled Composites, an aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan, to build the Stratolaunch carrier plane.
The plane will carry a single Pegasus XL rocket built by Orbital ATK, but the craft will eventually be able to carry up to three of them.
"We're excited to announce that Stratolaunch aircraft has reached a major milestone in its journey toward providing convenient, reliable, and routine access to low-Earth orbit," Stratolaunch Systems Corp. CEO Jean Floyd said in a statement, Space.com reported.
"This marks the completion of the initial aircraft construction phase and the beginning of the aircraft ground- and flight-testing phase,” the CEO added.
The Stratolaunch aircraft is designed for a max takeoff weight of 1,300,000 pounds, meaning it’s capable of carrying payloads up to approximately 550,000 pounds.
Over the coming weeks and months, the engineers will be actively conducting ground and flight line testing at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
