Richard Branson turns Boeing 747 into a rocket launch padMumbai, Dec 4(AZINS) Space cowboy and founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson revealed his plans to launch commercial rockets into space using a Boeing 747-400. Showed off the mothership which he calls “Cosmic Girl,” he said that the Boeing 747-400 airplane could haul LauncherOne rockets to new heights.

According to Virgin’s press release, Cosmic Girl, which has been in the Virgin fleet would be undergoing the transformation very soon. The LauncherOne rocket will be mounted to the carrier aircraft under the left wing, adjacent to the position that has been used by other 747s to ferry a fifth engine. The rocket weighs about 55,000 pounds.

“If you’re waiting for one of these giant rockets to put small satellites into space, you sometimes have to wait six months, or a year,” he said at the Cosmic Girl event. But this new launcher cum aircraft brings in a contrast. All it needs is a 24 hours notice and the Virgin Galactic mothership could theoretically be good to go minting huge payoffs.

Use of a commercial airplane as a rocket-launcher does away with the need for a ground launch pad and other supplementary logistics. Instead, the rocket mounted on the planes’ wing and once it hits an altitude of 35,000 feet on its hitched ride, it can disengage, fire up its engine, and continue its mission to deposit a satellite payload into orbit.

Virgin Galactic geared up to launch rockets using Boeing 747 Image source: Virgin Galactic
 
Virgin Galactic holds that the switch to the 747 is because the plane caters to a dual advantage of bearing both LauncherOne’s payload capacity and its flight frequency. Also, its usage would make its jet aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo available exclusively for space missions.

In October 2014, Virgin Galactic confronted a major setback when its first SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight claiming the life of the co-pilot, leaving the pilot severely injured. Investigations traced human error as the cause of this mishap along with minor faults in equipment design, training lapses and regulatory gaps.

In the wake of last year’s accident, Virgin Galactic has shied away from declaring the exact date or time frame for the start of commercial operations of its much awaited Cosmic Girl.

Currently, a second SpaceShipTwo is under construction, with flight tests expected to begin next year.