see air launch . airlaunch type private industry aerospace and defense founded 2000 2003 citation needed headquarters kirkland washington united states key people gary hudson founder ceo debra facktor lepore president livingston holder chief program executive curtis gifford chief operating officer ralph ewig chief engineer citation needed products orbital rocket launch ; aerospace hardware website www.airlaunchllc.com airlaunch was an aerospace design and development company headquartered in kirkland washington . when they had hoped to provide launch services for launching payloads into orbits around the earth . this was to be realized through a method called air launch where a rocket is carried to high altitude by an aircraft and then released for launch . the rocket engine is then ignited to launch the rocket with its payload into a low earth orbit leo . full citation needed the principal advantage of a rocket being launched by a high flying airplane is that it need not fly through the low dense atmosphere the drag of which requires a considerable amount of extra work and thus mass of propellant . another advantage is to precisely launch a payload into any orbital inclination at any time and from a much wider variety of geographic launch locations . contents 1 falcon small launch vehicle 2 conclusion of falcon slv program 3 references 4 external links falcon small launch vehicle edit on june 14 2006 the firm in a darpa sponsored test dropped a 72 000 pounds 33 t dummy payload from the back of a c 17 a record setting drop for the aircraft type . 1 full citation needed airlaunch subsequently carried out upper stage propulsion development for the quickreach orbital launch vehicle . the quickreach vehicle is part of the air force and darpa falcon small launch vehicle program . conclusion of falcon slv program edit according to a darpa document dated oct 2008 the quickreach phase 2c test firings were completed and darpa has concluded its slv program . 2 airlaunch subsequently ceased operations in november 2008 . citation needed references edit darpa air force and airlaunch llc drop test sets new c 17 record falcon technology demonstration program pdf . darpa . oct 2008 . external links edit company web site . archived from the original on 24 july 2011 . this corporation or company article is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e this space or spaceflight related article is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title airlaunch & oldid 738797236 categories commercial spaceflightprivate spaceflight companiesspace accessaerospace companies of the united statesdefunct companies based in washington state defunct spaceflight companiescompany stubsspace stubshidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from february 2011pages using infobox company with unsupported parametersvague or ambiguous time from february 2011articles needing more detailed referencesall stub articles navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 11 september 2016 at 03 18 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view