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The huge Stratolaunch aircraft designed to carry boosters that will carry payloads into orbit completed a key taxi test just a few days after company founder Paul Allen passed away. Stratolaunch recently reached speeds of about 80 knots on a runway in the Mojave Desert. The plane is expected to achieve its first flight after a few more such taxi tests are completed. Earlier this year, Allen explained that the Stratolaunch aircraft was more than just a vanity project, as some have suggested. "You don't build [that plane] unless you're very serious, not only about wanting to see the plane fly but to see it fulfill its purpose. Which is getting vehicles in orbit," he said. Bombardier has sued Mit