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Saturday 1 November 2014
NTSB probes deadly Virgin Galactic spaceship crash
MOJAVE, Calif. -- Federal aviation crash
investigators were expected here Saturday to
open the probe into the cause of the crash of
Virgin Galactic's tourism spaceship, which
claimed the life of one pilot and badly injured
the other.
Also due at the airport Saturday is Virgin Group
President Richard Branson, the British
billionaire and adventurer who had become the
public face of the space venture. He tweeted a
reassuring message to his staff and said he was
on his way.
The accident Friday came during a test flight
over the Mojave Desert, about 25 miles north of
the Mojave Air and Spaceport where Virgin and
its partner, Scaled Composites, base their
operations.
A photographer told the Associated Press that
SpaceShipTwo blew up shortly after its engine
fired when it was dropped from the
WhiteKnightTwo aircraft that carried it aloft to
45,000 feet, the Associated Press reported.
Wreckage was scattered across desert railroad
tracks near Cantil, in Kern County.
But two other witnesses said there was no
explosion. Marlena Rowley of Mojave told USA
TODAY she was watching the test next to her
husband and all looked normal. She says she
saw two pieces, which is normal when the
spaceship separates from the mothership. But
her husband, watching through binoculars,
turned to her and said, "that doesn't look good."
She says she wasn't aware there was an
accident until she heard the sirens of
emergency vehicles.
Also, Stuart Witt, the airport's director, said he
didn't see anything unusual during the test.
"I will tell you from my eyes and my ears that I
detected nothing that appeared abnormal," he
told reporters. "If there was a huge explosion, it
didn't occur. I didn't see it,"
The pilot ejected and was taken to a hospital,
but the co-pilot suffered fatal injuries, the Kern
County Sheriff's Office reported. Their identities
were not immediately released.
Virgin Galactic said the craft "suffered a serious
anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle." The
malfunction, which occurred about two minutes
after ship was released, was not immediately
identified.
The test was the fourth powered flight for the
rocket-glider but the first using a new fuel.
SpaceShipTwo had last flown under its own
power in January.
The test, conducted by Scaled Composites,
Virgin Galactic's partner, began about 9:20 a.m.
PT when the mothership took off with the
spacecraft. The weather was clear, and winds
were light at time of the accident, according to
AccuWeather meteorologists. The spacecraft
separated form the mothership at 10:10 a.m.
and the first signs of trouble came two minutes
later.
"Space is hard, and today is a tough day," Virgin
Galactic CEO George Whitesides told reporters.
"We are going to be supporting the investigation
to figure out what happened today and we're
going to get through it."
Friday's flight was the 55th time SpaceShipTwo
had been released by the mothership and was
flying independently.
Branson has been developing the suborbital
craft at the Mojave spaceport, northeast of Los
Angeles. The company had hoped to begin
commercial flights next year.
Development of the spacecraft's rocket motor
has been costly, and deadly.
In July 2007, three facility workers died and
three were injured in an explosion during a test
of the vehicle's propellant system by Scaled
Composites, which was founded by aviation
entrepreneur Burt Rutan.
Virgin Galactic announced in May that it was
changing SpaceShipTwo's hybrid propellant
because the original rubber-based fuel mix
caused serious engine instability after firing for
about 20 seconds.
Friday marked the first test flight using a new,
plastic-based fuel.
Branson told USA TODAY in 2011 that he
envisioned Virgin Galactic expanding from
suborbital to orbital travel and even flights
between continents that could be done in a
fraction of the time they take by airplane.
Made of carbon composites, SpaceShipTwo was
about twice a large as its prototype
predecessor, SpaceShipOne. It was 60 feet long
with a cabin diameter of 90 inches, about the
size of a Falcon 900 executive jet without a
floor. In addition to two pilots, it was designed
to carry six passengers.
"The spaceship can be thought of as an air
launched glider with a rocket motor and a
couple of extra systems for spaceflight," the
company says.
In 2011, development costs for SpaceShipTwo
were estimated at $400 million, three times the
original projections.
Virgin Galactic is owned by Branson's Virgin
Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi,
United Arab Emirates. Seats for future flights
cost $250,000, prepaid.
SpaceShipTwo is one of several spacecraft
owned by New York-based Virgin Galactic, a unit
of privately held Virgin Group. The company
also owns the mothership WhiteKnightTwo –
which Branson christened Eve, after his mother
– and LauncherOne, an orbital launch vehicle.
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