The world’s largest airplane – designed to reshape space travel by launching rockets mid-air into orbit from 30,000 ft – rolled out of its hangar for the first time at the Mojave Air and Space Port in the US.
The groundbreaking plane, which looks like two aircraft joined together, is the brainchild of billionaire Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen and his private spaceflight company Stratolaunch. Allen founded the company in 2011 with the goal of making access to low-Earth orbit more “convenient, reliable and routine.”
It has the biggest wingspan of any aircraft ever built, coming in 385ft (117 meters), longer than an NFL field which is 360ft in length.