The world's largest aircraft took off over the Mojave Desert in
California on Saturday April 13,2019, the first flight for the carbon-composite plane
built by Stratolaunch Systems Corp, started by late Microsoft co-founder
Paul Allen, as the company enters the lucrative private space market.
The
white airplane called Roc, which has a wingspan the length of an
American football field and is powered by six engines on a twin
fuselage, took to the air shortly before 7 a.m. Pacific time (1400 GMT)
and stayed aloft for more than two hours before landing safely back at
the Mojave Air and Space Port as a crowd of hundreds of people cheered.
The plane is designed to drop rockets and other space vehicles
weighing up to 500,000 pounds at an altitude of 35,000 feet and has been
billed by the company as making satellite deployment as “easy as
booking an airline flight.”
Saturday's flight, which saw the plane
reach a maximum speed of 189 miles per hour and altitudes of 17,000
feet, was meant to test its performance and handling qualities,
according to Stratolaunch.
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