US

Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes during test flight

One pilot dead and another seriously injured following ‘anomally’ in Mojave, California

File photo from 2010 shows SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise) as it glides toward Earth on its first test flight after release from the mothership WhiteKnightTwo over the Mojave Desert in California. Photograph: EPA
File photo from 2010 shows SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise) as it glides toward Earth on its first test flight after release from the mothership WhiteKnightTwo over the Mojave Desert in California. Photograph: EPA
Fri Oct 31 2014 - 19:39

A pilot has died after a suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic crashed during a test flight at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Two pilots were aboard the spaceship, which was undergoing its first powered test flight since January. Californian authorities say one pilot has been killed and the other has suffered “major injury”.

Richard Branson said he was on his way to Mojave following the crash. “Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support. I’m flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team,” Mr Branson tweeted

Wreckage from Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is shown in this still image captured from KNBC. Photograph: Reuters
Wreckage from Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is shown in this still image captured from KNBC. Photograph: Reuters

More than 800 people have paid or put down deposits to fly aboard the spaceship, which is carried to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and released. The spaceship then fires its rocket motor to catapult it to about 100 km high, giving passengers a view of the planet set against the blackness of space and a few minutes of weightlessness.

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The spaceship is based on a prototype, called SpaceShipOne, which 10 years ago won the Ansari X Prize for the first privately developed manned spacecraft to fly in space.

Today‘s test was to be the spaceship’s first powered test flight since January. In May, Virgin Galactic and spaceship developer Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp, switched to an alternative plastic-type of fuel grain for the hybrid rocket motor.

The accident is the second this week by a US space company. On Tuesday, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded 15 seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.

Reuters