He did a test flight with two pilots in the desert … – RTVE

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Photography Space Ship Shift Virgin Galactic, dated October 2010. Reuters

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Richard Branson, founder of Virgin and Virgin Galactic, a model of its spacecraft, in an image of 2008. AFP

AGENCIES

The spacecraft for transporting passengers being developed by Virgin Galactic, the company of British tycoon Richard Branson, has suffered a serious accident during the test flight was made on Friday at the base of Mojave, California, with two pilots aboard. One pilot died and another has been seriously injured, as reported by the California Highway Patrol.

The ship SpaceShiftTwo was conducting its first flight since last January. “During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly which resulted in the loss of SpaceShipTwo” said Virgin Galactic, the first commercial space line in the world that aims to take tourists into space.

ship with room for six passengers and two pilots, each equipped with a parachute, is under test. The flight took off on Friday, had risen in a larger aircraft, the WhiteKnightTwo mother ship and then dropped to test the power output of your rocket.

Photographer Ken Brown, who covered the launch (at 9:19 pm local time, 18:19 pm CET Spanish), told NBC News that he saw an explosion and witnessed the wreckage was scattered in a small desert area.

The accident comes three days after Tuesday exploded Antares rocket from Orbital Sciences Corporation to private firm six seconds off of the NASA facility at Wallops Island, Virginia, an event in which no one was injured.

To date, more than 800 people have paid or given a deposit to fly aboard this spacecraft, which is high in flight suborbital over 13,000 meters to be released and then propelled by a rocket to a hundred miles high , so that passengers can enjoy a panoramic view of the planet against the background of space and even experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

The spacecraft is based on a prototype SpaceShipOne, which ten years ago won the competition to build the first private manned spacecraft project.

The test on Friday was the first test of the ship power since last January. In May, Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, a rocket developer, had opted for a plastic fuel hybrid engine that propels the rocket, Reuters reports.

Virgin Galactic hoped that the first trip ship to the edge of outer space had been made later this year if test flights proved satisfactory. The very founder of the company, Richard Branson, hopes to participate in the first commercial flight.