Niki Doyle, The Huntsville Times
SEATTLE, Washington -- Stratolaunch Systems, a new commercial space company announced today by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, will be based in Huntsville, according to the company's website.
The company, which represents a partnership between Allen and commercial space pioneer Burt Rutan, will build what it calls the world's largest airplane to launch rockets bearing medium-sized payloads into orbit.
Board members of the new company include Dave King, vice president of Dynetics; former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin; Rutan; SpaceX Technologies vice president Gywnne Shotwell; and Chris Purcell, vice president of Allen's investment company, Vulcan Inc.
Huntsville aerospace company Dynetics will be responsible for the technical integration of its systems. The ultimate goal of the company is to put humans in space, Allen said today.
Besides Dynetics, a booster developed by SpaceX Technologies in California will power the new rocket, a modified version of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Scaled Composites, a company founded by commercial space pioneer Burt Rutan, will build the plane to carry the rocket aloft to the launch point.
"The air launch system has a gross weight of more than 1.2 million pounds and a wingspan greater than the length of a football field, making it the largest air launch system ever developed," according to a Dynetics statement. "It has a range of more than 1,300 nautical miles. Using six 747 engines and a composite airframe, the carrier aircraft is the largest aircraft by wingspan ever constructed."
Allen, 58, has a personal fortune estimated at $15 billion from his years at Microsoft and later career in investing. He owns the Portland Trailblazers of the National Basketball Association and the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League.
Dynetics says its responsibilities include "leading the technical integration of the air launch enterprise - including program management support, systems engineering, flight dynamics and integration, test and operations; as well as developing, manufacturing, testing and integrating the hardware that will attach the booster to the carrier aircraft." Work on the air launch system will be accomplished in Dynetics' new 226,500-square-foot prototyping center in Huntsville.