Abstract:This paper describes the concept trade studies that AirLaunch LLC conducted during their Phase I study for air launching an earth-to-orbit launch vehicle for the DARPA/USAF FALCON program. AirLaunch LLC has proposed a rocket carried by and launched from an existing military cargo aircraft for this program. A new method, called Gravity Air Launch (GAL), is proposed that greatly improves simplicity, safety, and reliability of air launching from an unmodified cargo aircraft as compared to existing methods that rely on standard heavy equipment airdrop procedures and equipment. Unlike standard airdrop methods, GAL imparts much of the carrier aircraft's altitude and airspeed onto the rocket, which in turn improves payload mass to orbit.