Post by swamprat on Feb 18, 2015 15:54:45 GMT -6
DARPA to Begin Testing Satellite-Launching Fighter Jet This Year
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | February 10, 2015
The United States military's ambitious plan to launch satellites from the belly of a fighter jet should get its first in-air test later this year.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to begin the flight-test phase of its Airborne Launch Assist Space Access program, or ALASA, with a demonstration run in late 2015. If all goes according to plan, a series of 12 orbital flights would then commence in early 2016 and wrap up by the middle of the year, DARPA officials said.
"The plan right now is, we have 12 [orbital] launches. The first three are fundamentally engineering checkout payloads," Bradford Tousley, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, said Feb. 5 during a presentation at the Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C. "The other nine will be various scientific and research development payloads that we're after."
The ALASA military space project consists of an F-15 fighter jet carrying an expendable launch vehicle underneath it. Once the F-15 gets up to a sufficient altitude, the rocket releases and ignites, carrying its payload to orbit. The F-15 would then return to Earth for a runway landing, after which it would be prepped for another mission.
The current plan calls for flights to originate out of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, with launches occurring over the Atlantic Ocean, Tousley said.
The goal of the ALASA program is to make launching small payloads much cheaper and more efficient. Indeed, DARPA wants the system to eventually launch 100-lb. (45 kilograms) satellites for less than $1 million each, and to be able to do so on less than 24 hours' notice.
www.space.com/28504-darpa-satellite-launching-jet-alasa-xs-1.html
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | February 10, 2015
The United States military's ambitious plan to launch satellites from the belly of a fighter jet should get its first in-air test later this year.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to begin the flight-test phase of its Airborne Launch Assist Space Access program, or ALASA, with a demonstration run in late 2015. If all goes according to plan, a series of 12 orbital flights would then commence in early 2016 and wrap up by the middle of the year, DARPA officials said.
"The plan right now is, we have 12 [orbital] launches. The first three are fundamentally engineering checkout payloads," Bradford Tousley, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, said Feb. 5 during a presentation at the Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C. "The other nine will be various scientific and research development payloads that we're after."
The ALASA military space project consists of an F-15 fighter jet carrying an expendable launch vehicle underneath it. Once the F-15 gets up to a sufficient altitude, the rocket releases and ignites, carrying its payload to orbit. The F-15 would then return to Earth for a runway landing, after which it would be prepped for another mission.
The current plan calls for flights to originate out of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, with launches occurring over the Atlantic Ocean, Tousley said.
The goal of the ALASA program is to make launching small payloads much cheaper and more efficient. Indeed, DARPA wants the system to eventually launch 100-lb. (45 kilograms) satellites for less than $1 million each, and to be able to do so on less than 24 hours' notice.
www.space.com/28504-darpa-satellite-launching-jet-alasa-xs-1.html