Virgin Galactic's experimental commercial spaceflight vehicle
crashed after experiencing an "in-flight anomaly" during a test
flight on Friday. One person was killed and another was suffered
serious injuries.
SpaceShipTwo took off with two pilots on board at 12:20 p.m. ET from
Mojave, California in a powered test flight that the company called
a "Halloween treat."
But less than an hour later, the company tweeted that something
had gone wrong. Virgin Galactic confirmed the loss of the spaceship
but has given no other details about the cause of the accident, which
occurred in the desert northeast of Los Angeles. SpaceShipTwo was
running on a new fuel formulation, and officials said it had been
"proven and tested on the ground" four times.
First images of @virgingalactic #SpaceShipTwo debris site
starting to come out via @ABC7 chopper pic.twitter.com/
HS27QrKw03
— Mashable News (@MashableNews) October 31, 2014
The incident occurred shortly after SpaceShipTwo separated from
WhiteKnightTwo, which is the vehicle that carries the spaceship
aloft. The WhiteKnightTwo landed safely.
PHOTOS: Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo accident http:///
NONMPVCMrW pic.twitter.com/kO5i5aWzN4
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) October 31, 2014
Kevin Mickey of Scale Composites, the aerospace company that
employed the test pilots, said the aircraft was "in several pieces"
and strewn across the crash site when emergency responders
arrived on scene.
" Space is hard, and today was a tough day," Virgin Galactic CEO
George Whitesides said at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
The space tourism company, which has promised to shuttle hundreds
of paying customers to orbit when it begins commercial flights next
year, said it is working with authorities to determine the cause of
the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.
Officials did not release the names of the pilots. Mickey said their
families have been notified.
Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, is en route to the
crash site. Whitesides said Brandon would arrive to Mojave on
Saturday morning. The National Transportation Safety Board is
expected to arrive around that time as well to begin an investigation.
The crash comes just days after an unmanned private cargo ship
operating under a NASA contract exploded on launch . The Orbital
Sciences Antares rocket was headed to the International Space
Station to deliver supplies, but it blew up just six seconds after
takeoff from NASA's Wallops facility in Virginia.
"It hasn't been an easy week," said Stuart Witt of Mojave Air and
Space Port. "But this is where you find your character."
However, the Virgin Galactic crash on Friday is a setback of a
different kind for the private space industry. Antares was designed
to to carry cargo. SpaceShipTwo was designed to carry humans. Both
instances are stark reminders of the complexities behind
spaceflight.
"The future rests in many ways on hard days like this," Whitesides
said.
SpaceShipTwo was first unveiled on Dec. 7, 2009. Branson promised a
few hundred people who had booked tickets to space that flights
would begin within two years. The company has sold more than 700
tickets so far.
"I am not reconsidering, yet," ticket-holder Jim Clash told
Mashable after the crash on Friday afternoon. "Rockets are a tough
business — and they are risky."
Virgin Galactic has completed more than 35 test flights of
SpaceShipTwo. Friday's test flight was the company's first rocket-
powered one since January, when SpaceShipTwo reached its highest
altitude yet with 71,000 feet.
Although Virgin Galactic has been the front-runner in the fledgling
space-tourism industry, the program's suffered a number of
setbacks. The timeframe for launch was pushed back to February or
March in 2015. Branson is due to be on board on that flight.
However, Friday's crash could bog down the program even more.
"Stay the course. This business is a worthy business," said Witt on
Friday afternoon. "It's a cause far greater than one of us
singularly. I equate it to the Magellan mission."
These vehicles are expensive to test and build but cheap to fly when
compared to a typical space shuttle. SpaceShipTwo was the
company's primary vehicle. As of April, Virgin Galactic was "pretty
far along" in building a second vehicle. The company has said that it
wants to build a spaceship fleet.
Inside the aircraft
Earlier this year, we got a close-up look at a full-scale
SpaceShipTwo replica. The vehicle is relatively large in person
(though tiny compared to, say, one of NASA's space shuttles) and
will have enough room for six passengers and two pilots.
There's ample room inside for the seats and, when the time is right,
moving about the cabin. There are also a lot of windows.
Inside the spacious SpaceShipTwo cabin.
Details about the commercial flight
Unlike a classic spaceflight, where the rocket sits on a launch pad
and blasts off into space, Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo is attached
to the belly of an airplane. The plane flies to an altitude of
approximately 50,000 feet and then releases SpaceshipTwo.
The spaceship free falls for a few seconds, then the pilots light up
the vehicle's hybrid rocket motor, which burns for about a minute. It
"accelerates you from not very fast to the speed of sound in about
seven seconds or so," said Vice President of Special Projects at
Virgin Galactic Will Pomerantz.
When the engine stops firing, you’ll be traveling at Mach 3.5 (more
than three times the speed of sound). During this time you are
traveling completely vertical. When you reach the peak altitude of
your flight, you'll be higher than 76 miles above Earth's surface,
the boundary that NASA defines as the edge of our atmosphere and
the beginning of space.
For the next four-to-five minutes, you can unbuckle your seatbelt
and float about the cabin. Virgin Galactic said will train its
astronaut passengers on how to orient themselves in zero gravity
and float without bumping into each other.

An hour-and-a-half later, you're back on the ground, in the
same New Mexico facility from where you first launched.
Virgin Galactic has touted the safety of that launch procedure. "If
there were any problems during the boost phase, the rocket motor
could simply be shut down and the spaceship would return as a
glider to the runway," the company's website says.

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