LOS ANGELES — Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed during testing Friday, according to a Mojave Air and Space Port spokesperson and the FAA.
A statement from Virgin Galactic said its partner Scaled Composites conducted the test flight Friday, during which a “serious anomaly” led to the “loss of the vehicle.” The WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, which carries the SpaceShipTwo, landed safely.
A California Highway Patrol spokesperson said two people were found near the crash in the desert north of California City and east of Mojave. A spokeswoman for the Kern County Coroner’s Office confirmed there was one fatality related to the crash, but had no details about the person’s identity.
One of the individuals had parachuted out of the aircraft, and another was located near the scene as well, California Highway Patrol said.
This was the company’s first rocket-powered test flight in nine months. In January, SpaceShipTwo reached 71,000 feet — its highest altitude so far. Virgin Galactic has done its testing for the spacecraft in the Mojave Desert at Mojave Air and Space Port, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
The Virgin Galactic crash was the second catastrophe in the commercial space industry in a week. On Tuesday night, an unmanned rocket exploded just seconds after liftoff from a Virginia launch pad. The $200 million rocket, owned by Orbital Sciences, was carrying supplies to the space station. No one was injured in that explosion.
British billionaire Richard Branson’s commercial space venture in May announced an agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration that helped clear the path to send paying customers on a suborbital flight. The agreement sets the parameters for how routine missions to space will take place in national airspace. It does not yet give the company a license to launch these missions.
The company’s plans have been repeatedly delayed. Branson said earlier this month at a celebration in Mojave that it was “on the verge” of going to space, but he did not give a timeframe.
The reusable SpaceShipTwo rocket plane was designed to fly with the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft to 50,000 feet, where the spaceship separates and blasts off.
Virgin Galactic has said that when the rocket motor engages, it will power the spaceship to nearly 2,500 mph and take the pilot — and up to six passengers — to the edge of space, or more than 60 miles above the Earth’s surface.
Passengers would experience weightlessness at the suborbital altitude and see the curvature of the earth. The spaceship would re-enter the atmosphere and glide back to a runway. The company planned to charge $250,000 for the experience.
Marco Caceres, senior analyst and director of space studies at the Teal Group, said that having two crashes in a week “could have very serious impact” on attracting investors to the industry.
He said that any time a person dies it sends the message of how dangerous these ventures are. Virgin will now have a harder time attracting customers.
Virgin’s space plane looked safer than a rocket to the public, he said.
“People will now realize this is space travel,” Caceres said, “and you’re getting into a rocket.”
Distributed by MCT Information Services