xkcd

no they cancelled it because thats impossible lol. you can shoot a satellite with a suborbital object but thats a loooong way from the projectile being orbital.

Nah, it's not that long a way. You just need to adjust your goals, add an extra stage, accept a much smaller payload.

If you can get a payload to space, you could put a payload 1/4 its mass into orbit with an additional stage.

I mean, the anti-sat F-15 test was pretty wild. But is arguably less wild than other airlaunch systems like the Pegasus or spaceship one. Saying that airlaunch is impossible is silly, because it's happening.

These systems get cancelled because they're expensive and complicated and reusable rockets are cheaper and easier.

You're not totally right. A jet engine can provide a large amount of the ∆V required to get into orbit, so your orbital injector could be significantly smaller than a full orbital rocket.

Yeah, a mixed-mode engine is probably not the ideal. You'd probably just use a liquid fuel rocket carrying oxidizer, like every other orbital rocket, as the payload on the jet, but you'd get to skip a large portion of the launch. Keep in mind that the rocket equation means that most of the fuel is used for the initial portion of the launch. If we can have an air breathing jet handle that then the rocket can be significantly smaller.

If you're just trying to insert a single small payload into orbit, it makes some sense. It's very limited by the capabilities of the aircraft though, obviously. A rocket can do significantly larger payloads with more versatility, so it ends up being more practical per ton of payload.

I was sad to see Reaction Engines go, they were local-ish to where I grew up.