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| Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashes after ‘anomaly’ during test, one person killed | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A Virgin Galactic spacecraft intended to carry tourists crashed in the Mojave desert due to an “in-flight anomaly” during a test flight Friday, the company said. One person was reportedly killed in the incident, which was the second this week involving a craft intended for spaceflight. | |
| “During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo,” Virgin Galactic tweeted. | |
| The company said in a statement that “a serious anomaly” occurred and that it is working with authorities to figure out what happened. It also said the status of the two pilots was not immediately known after the crash, which occurred shortly after 10 a.m. | |
| One person was killed, while another was seriously injured, according to the Associated Press. | |
| This crash occurred after SpaceShipTwo separated from WhiteKnightToo, which was carrying the space flight vehicle into the air, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash. | |
| The craft crashed east of Mojave, Calif., Mojave Air and Space Port chief executive Stu Witt told Bakersfield TV station KGET. WhiteKnightTwo, which carries the space ship to 50,000 feet before it is release, was able to land safely. | |
| Richard Branson posted on Twitter that he would be flying to Mojave after 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. — Richard Branson (@richardbranson) October 31, 2014 | Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support. I'm flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team. — Richard Branson (@richardbranson) October 31, 2014 |
| Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support. I'm flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team. | Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support. I'm flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team. |
| — Richard Branson (@richardbranson) October 31, 2014 | — Richard Branson (@richardbranson) October 31, 2014 |
| NBC News, which has a partnership with Virgin Galactic, reported that two pilots were in the SpaceShipTwo craft during the test. | |
| The California Highway Patrol referred questions about the crash to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, which could not be immediately reached for comment. | The California Highway Patrol referred questions about the crash to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, which could not be immediately reached for comment. |
| Earlier Friday morning, the flight took off from the Mojave Desert, despite some initial concerns about high winds. | Earlier Friday morning, the flight took off from the Mojave Desert, despite some initial concerns about high winds. |
| We’re still closely tracking the weather—mainly winds on the ground and aloft. Stay tuned for updates. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | We’re still closely tracking the weather—mainly winds on the ground and aloft. Stay tuned for updates. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| We’re still closely tracking the weather—mainly winds on the ground and aloft. Stay tuned for updates. | We’re still closely tracking the weather—mainly winds on the ground and aloft. Stay tuned for updates. |
| — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| And we have takeoff for WhiteKnightTwo & #SpaceShipTwo here in Mojave, CA. This is SS2's 55th flight & WK2's 173rd. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | And we have takeoff for WhiteKnightTwo & #SpaceShipTwo here in Mojave, CA. This is SS2's 55th flight & WK2's 173rd. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| And we have takeoff for WhiteKnightTwo & #SpaceShipTwo here in Mojave, CA. This is SS2's 55th flight & WK2's 173rd. | And we have takeoff for WhiteKnightTwo & #SpaceShipTwo here in Mojave, CA. This is SS2's 55th flight & WK2's 173rd. |
| — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| #SpaceShipTwo has been released by WhiteKnightTwo, and is now flying freely for the 35th time. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | #SpaceShipTwo has been released by WhiteKnightTwo, and is now flying freely for the 35th time. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| #SpaceShipTwo has been released by WhiteKnightTwo, and is now flying freely for the 35th time. | #SpaceShipTwo has been released by WhiteKnightTwo, and is now flying freely for the 35th time. |
| — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| Ignition! #SpaceShipTwo is flying under rocket power again. Stay tuned for updates. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | Ignition! #SpaceShipTwo is flying under rocket power again. Stay tuned for updates. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| Ignition! #SpaceShipTwo is flying under rocket power again. Stay tuned for updates. | Ignition! #SpaceShipTwo is flying under rocket power again. Stay tuned for updates. |
| — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 | — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October 31, 2014 |
| Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004 by British businessman Richard Branson with the goal of becoming the world’s first space tourism company. Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, which has hundreds of companies, including Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America airlines. | Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004 by British businessman Richard Branson with the goal of becoming the world’s first space tourism company. Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, which has hundreds of companies, including Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America airlines. |
| RELATED: Destination Unknown | An occasional series on the future of NASA and space exploration. | RELATED: Destination Unknown | An occasional series on the future of NASA and space exploration. |
| “My heart and prayers go out to the pilots of SpaceShipTwo and their families,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “Their courage and bravery to embark on missions that will lead towards expanding man’s reach into space exemplify the ingenuity and imagination of America. Today’s devastating crash is a reminder how fragile life is in these efforts.” | |
| SpaceShipTwo is designed to hold two pilots and six passengers. The company has taken deposits of up to $250,000 each from more than 700 people to reserve seats on the first successful space flights, according to the Albuquerque Journal. | |
| Charles Lurio, the publisher of a newsletter about the commercial space industry, The Lurio Report, compared the test-flight explosion to the hundreds of people lost over years of testing early aircraft. | |
| “I hope people understand that in order to make progress in certain areas you have to take certain risks,” Lurio said. “This is why we need more than one or two companies trying things out, and why we need people willing to test things on the ground. … We need to enable more people to try, not fewer.” | |
| The first flight tests of SpaceShipTwo began in 2013. But at the beginning of this year, the company suspended tests in after changing the fuel used to power the rocket, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Earlier this month, it resumed tests and announced that the final phase of testing — which would take the spacecraft into the outer edges of the earth’s atmosphere — would be coming soon. | The first flight tests of SpaceShipTwo began in 2013. But at the beginning of this year, the company suspended tests in after changing the fuel used to power the rocket, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Earlier this month, it resumed tests and announced that the final phase of testing — which would take the spacecraft into the outer edges of the earth’s atmosphere — would be coming soon. |
| The beginning of commercial service has been continuously pushed back, but the company now says that they could finally become a reality in 2015. | The beginning of commercial service has been continuously pushed back, but the company now says that they could finally become a reality in 2015. |
| The crash of the spaceship is a devastating blow to one of the most high-profile startup space companies, one led by charismatic entrepreneur Richard Branson. The company has been hoping to be the pioneer of space tourism – selling customers tickets at $250,000 each to ride more than 60 miles above the Earth’s surface, which by conventional definitions is into space, on sub-orbital flights. The company has been promising for many years that it is getting close to commercial operation, but has faced a series of delays due to technical issues – not an uncommon problem in spaceflight. | |
| SpaceShipTwo was designed by the legendary engineer Burt Rutan, who founded a company, Scaled Composites, in the desert town of Mojave, Calif., near Edwards Air Force Base and in a part of the country known for historic aviation feats – including pilot Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in 1947. A smaller predecessor to the craft, SpaceShipOne, became the first private spacecraft to reach space in 2004. | |
| The spacecraft was not designed to become an orbital vehicle. It was, however, designed to be entirely reuseable. The CEO of the company, George Whitesides, said last year that 650 people had put down money so far for tickets. The original price of $200,000 a seat had risen to $250,000 by that point. | |
| “I hope that we do have competition at some point. Right now there’s not much competition, because it’s hard, it’s hard to build these things, it’s hard to put these operations together,” Whitesides said. He gave a Post reporter a tour of a hangar where spaceship parts were being built, but the spacecraft itself was out of sight in a different hangar. | |
| The crash also comes just days after the explosion of an unnamed cargo rocket, which blew up seconds after it launched from Wallops Island on Virginia on Tuesday night. | |
| The accident comes 10 years to the month after SpaceShipOne reached a crucial milestone, becoming the first privately built vehicle to fly to the edge of space two times in two weeks. The achievement was marked as a pinnacle of private spaceflight and netted them the $10 million Ansari X Prize. | The accident comes 10 years to the month after SpaceShipOne reached a crucial milestone, becoming the first privately built vehicle to fly to the edge of space two times in two weeks. The achievement was marked as a pinnacle of private spaceflight and netted them the $10 million Ansari X Prize. |
| Though both private undertakings, the two accidents were linked to two very different types of advanced flight: Antares is a traditional rocket; SpaceShipTwo, a suborbital rocket plane. But both could bring home fresh worries over the safety of private manned spaceflight. | Though both private undertakings, the two accidents were linked to two very different types of advanced flight: Antares is a traditional rocket; SpaceShipTwo, a suborbital rocket plane. But both could bring home fresh worries over the safety of private manned spaceflight. |
| John Logsdon, a professor emeritus of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, said, “This will inject a note of sobriety into the enthusiasm of those who would like the spaceflight experience. There was a whole juggernaut of ground training and private spaceports that were being set up to support an emerging space tourism industry, with a collective burst of maybe unrealistic expectations. This will certainly throw cold water on that.” | John Logsdon, a professor emeritus of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, said, “This will inject a note of sobriety into the enthusiasm of those who would like the spaceflight experience. There was a whole juggernaut of ground training and private spaceports that were being set up to support an emerging space tourism industry, with a collective burst of maybe unrealistic expectations. This will certainly throw cold water on that.” |
| “It’s going to be very hard to be as optimistic as Mr. Branson has been. He was talking about taking his family on the first flight,” Logsdon said. “Faced with the stark reality that this is still new and unproven technology, I think the enthusiasm will get turned down a notch or two.” | “It’s going to be very hard to be as optimistic as Mr. Branson has been. He was talking about taking his family on the first flight,” Logsdon said. “Faced with the stark reality that this is still new and unproven technology, I think the enthusiasm will get turned down a notch or two.” |
| “This was a test flight, and test flights try new things,” Logsdon said. “This was their first attempt to use a new fuel. Sometimes, tests don’t work in catastrophic ways.” | “This was a test flight, and test flights try new things,” Logsdon said. “This was their first attempt to use a new fuel. Sometimes, tests don’t work in catastrophic ways.” |
| American crews have accomplished suborbital spaceflight since before going into orbit, but the potential addition of people, particularly private citizens, is still incredibly new. | American crews have accomplished suborbital spaceflight since before going into orbit, but the potential addition of people, particularly private citizens, is still incredibly new. |
| The Orbital Sciences Corp. rocket was carrying thousands of pounds of food and supplies to the International Space Station when it exploded, a catastrophic event that sent the Dulles, Va.-based company’s stock price tumbling, but caused no injuries or fatalities. | The Orbital Sciences Corp. rocket was carrying thousands of pounds of food and supplies to the International Space Station when it exploded, a catastrophic event that sent the Dulles, Va.-based company’s stock price tumbling, but caused no injuries or fatalities. |
| “The thing that’s important is that we don’t overreact to this failure — that we really understand what occurred, we let the Orbital team run the investigation, we understand what happened, we fix it,” Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator of human exploration and operations, said after the Orbital incident. | “The thing that’s important is that we don’t overreact to this failure — that we really understand what occurred, we let the Orbital team run the investigation, we understand what happened, we fix it,” Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator of human exploration and operations, said after the Orbital incident. |
| Joel Achenbach and Sarah Larimer contributed to this report. | |
| [This post has been updated. First published: 2:58 p.m.] |