Timeline for Horizontal space launch
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
15 events
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| Apr 1 at 15:27 | comment | added | Galerita | It may be worth mentioning Virgin's LauncherOne, which was to be launched from a 747, using the spare engine "hardpoint" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LauncherOne en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… The project has been abandoned after bankruptcy in 2023. | |
| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:58 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Jul 4, 2015 at 16:42 | comment | added | Anthony X | I remember reading an article on the subject about 30 years ago. Upshot was that there could be a significant saving in propellant to use wings and breath air for the initial launch phase - potentially boosting payload fraction from something like 2% to 20%, IIRC. The point was that a lot of propellant goes to lifting propellant; most of an air breather's propellant mass comes from the air (saving a lot of on-board mass), and wings balance weight with greater energy efficiency than rocket thrust does. | |
| Apr 14, 2015 at 14:02 | history | edited | Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 14, 2015 at 11:14 | comment | added | Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight | @raptortech97 the J58 was a hybrid design that transitioned from turbojet to ramjet mode at high mach numbers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_J58#Partial_ramjet | |
| Apr 14, 2015 at 10:51 | comment | added | raptortech97 | I'm pretty sure the SR-71 used turbojets, not ramjets. Remember, ramjets require a flow of air to produce any thrust at all, so they can't accelerate from a stop. Ramjets must always be air-launched or rocket-assisted. | |
| S Apr 13, 2015 at 23:19 | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 13, 2015 at 23:18 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Mar 13, 2014 at 8:02 | comment | added | Hobbes | The Pegasus was launched from a NASA B-52 for a few of the initial launches. I don't know why Orbital decided to use an airliner instead, but I can imagine transferring a B-52 to a commercial company would be (legally) difficult. | |
| Aug 13, 2013 at 10:54 | comment | added | Zoltán Schmidt | @DanNeely Oh, I see. | |
| Aug 13, 2013 at 10:32 | comment | added | Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight | @ZoltánSchmidt At 25 tons the Pegasus rocket is much larger than any air launched cruise missiles; so it would need to be a custom designed launcher instead. The US Tomahawk weighs a mere 1.5 tons, even the SS-22 "Sunburn", a huge Soviet missile designed to sink carriers only weighs 4.5 tons. | |
| Aug 12, 2013 at 16:18 | comment | added | Loren Pechtel | And note that from reading what they say about the Pegasus the carrier aircraft is of more use in getting it above most of the atmosphere than in imparting horizontal velocity. | |
| Aug 12, 2013 at 9:58 | vote | accept | Zoltán Schmidt | ||
| Aug 12, 2013 at 9:57 | comment | added | Zoltán Schmidt | Thanks for the answer! In Pegasus, I found it strange that it's carried by an airliner. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this task is rather expectable from military-aim airplanes instead. | |
| Aug 11, 2013 at 23:19 | history | answered | Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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