In article ,
Pat Flannery writes:
Henry Spencer wrote:

Rapid launch was a goal for Taurus, but I don't recall explicit mention
of it for Pegasus. (Mind you, it's been a while...)


If it succeeds, RASCAL would give the military NRO and NSA a unique
capability in regards to space access; such a vehicle would be capable
of launching a large number of small satellites onto orbital paths that
would take them over "hotspots" on their first orbit, allowing SIGINT
intercepts from orbit or photoreconnaissance at borderline orbital
heights- with the images being sent down via coded microburst as the
satellite passed back over the U.S. or friendly territory prior to reentry.
It would also allow the launch of large numbers of small military
communications, navigation, or signal jamming satellites in a surge mode
in times of crises, as well as satellite interceptor vehicles in a
direct-ascent mode.
The mission launch rate of once per 24 hours means that a small number
of these aircraft/booster combos could put up stored satellites or
interceptors every few hours in an emergency.
Although such a craft could have scientific or commercial uses, the
funding by DARPA suggests that its use is intended to be primarily
military in nature.

The same is pretty much true of Pegasus. What's been limiting that
has been a requirement to use existing ranges for, as I understand it,
range safety reasons. While the airborne launch theoretically
provides for essentially unrestricted launch trajectories, the need to
keep track of it on the way up, and have it fall somewhere other than,
say, a Junior Jugh School in New Jersey if things go wrong, have made
that inherent flexibility moot.
Is there any reason to believe that those artificial requirements
would be modified or lifted for Rascal? I rather doubt it, myself.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster