AirLaunch LLC was an aerospace

Aerospace

Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space...

 design and development company headquartered in Kirkland

Kirkland, Washington

Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. It is a suburb of Seattle on the Eastside . The population was 48,787 at the 2010 census makes it the 9th largest city in King County and the 20th largest city in the state...

, Washington. They hope to provide launch

Rocket launch

A rocket launch is the takeoff phase of the flight of a rocket. Launches for orbital spaceflights, or launches into interplanetary space, are usually from a fixed location on the ground, but may also be from a floating platform such as the San Marco platform, or the Sea Launch launch...

 services for launching payloads into orbits

Low Earth orbit

A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km...

 around the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

. This is to be realized through a method called air launch

Air launch

Air launching is the practice of dropping a parasite aircraft, rocket, or missile from a mothership. The parasite aircraft or missile is usually tucked under the wing of the larger mothership and then "dropped" from underneath the wing while in flight...

 where a rocket is carried within an aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

 and then dropped from altitude. The rocket engine

Rocket engine

A rocket engine, or simply "rocket", is a jet engineRocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1 that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...

 is then ignited where the rocket (with its payload) enter into a low earth orbit

Low Earth orbit

A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km...

.

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.

Falcon Small Launch Vehicle

On June 14, 2006, the firm, in a DARPA sponsored test, dropped a 65000 pounds (29.5 t) dummy payload from the back of a C-17

C-17 Globemaster III

The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft. Developed for the United States Air Force from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas, the C-17 is used for rapid strategic airlift of troops and cargo to main operating bases or forward operating bases throughout...

, a record-setting drop for the aircraft type. 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

According to a DARPA document dated Oct 2008, the QuickReach phase 2C test firings were completed, and DARPA has concluded its SLV program.
AirLaunch subsequently ceased operations in November 2008.