LEAD: Microsoft co-founder plans massive new plane for space launch

By Andy Goldberg Dec 13, 2011, 22:01 GMT

Seattle - Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is planning to build the largest aircraft ever flown to serve as the launch vehicle for a new space transportation system, he announced Tuesday.

The huge plane, which will integrate parts from old Boeing 747s with new composite materials, will be designed to launch a multi-stage booster into orbit with 'greater safety, cost effectiveness and flexibility' than ever before, Allen said. Plans call for the first flight within five years.

The announcement of the new space system came just months after the US space agency NASA shut down the space shuttle project as it transitions to private companies for much of its space travel needs.

Allen's company Stratolaunch Systems will work with legendary aircraft designer Bert Rutan to build the massive aircraft. The two previously collaborated on the development of SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 was the first privately-built manned vehicle to go into orbit.

'I have long dreamed about taking the next big step in private space flight after the success of SpaceShipOne - to offer a flexible, orbital space delivery system,' Allen said. 'We are at the dawn of radical change in the space launch industry. Stratolaunch Systems is pioneering an innovative solution that will revolutionize space travel.'

The twin-fuselage plane will use six 747 engines, weigh in at around 544,000 kilograms, and have a wingspan of 116 metres. It requires a runway for takeoff and landing of 3,650 metres. The massive aircraft will carry under the center of its wing a multistage booster weighing up to 222,250 kilograms.

The booster rocket, which would be capable of carrying satellites or manned space vehicles, will be built by SpaceX, a private company that has already launched a satellite into orbit and is contracted with NASA to develop a manned spacecraft to serve the International Space Station. The booster will be released at a height of around 10,000 metres, Rutan said, with the first flights scheduled for 2015 and the first launch planned for 2016.

The air launch system provides advantages over traditional land-based launches in that they allow more flexibility over weather conditions and optimum launch points for gaining specific orbits, said Mike Griffin, a former NASA executive and Stratolaunch board member.

Rutan said that the advantage was between five per cent and 10 per cent, 'but it's a world where such a small advantage is actually big.'

It will be built in a hangar at the Mojave Desert Air and Space Port in California. The multi-stage booster that will carry the spaceship from the plane into orbit will be manufactured by California-based Space Exploration Technologies, one of the world's pre-eminent space transportation companies.

'We have plenty and many challenges ahead of us,' Allen told reporters on Tuesday. 'But by the end of the decade...Stratolaunch will be putting spacecraft into orbit [and will] give tomorrow's children something to search for in the night sky.'