The suborbital spacecraft SpaceShipTwo Company Virgin Galactic has crashed in the American desert Mojave during the test flight. In the accident, a pilot has died and another was seriously injured, according to the authorities cited indicated by several US media. Being a test flight of the ship, for space tourism, there was no passenger on board. “I can confirm that there is one person dead and another seriously injured has been taken to a hospital,” said Sgt M. Singer, of the Highway Patrol near Mojave, California. A spokesman for the Kern County Sheriff, Ray Pruitt, has identified the deceased as the co-pilot, as the pilot had managed to eject, Reuters reports.
Virgin Galactic announced this afternoon via his Twitter account a “failure in flight” and then CEO Mojave Spaceport confirmed the accident. Since the company say their main concern is the state of the driver who is seriously injured and will work with the relevant authorities to determine the causes of the accident. “During the tests the ship suffered a serious malfunction that resulted in the loss of the machine,” the company said
The SpaceShipTwo reportedly took off a Airport about 150 miles north of Los Angeles. It was first raised with carrier 1.5 miles and then uncoupled plane. Shortly after it crashed. The supervisory authority of US flight FAA reported that shortly after undocking lost contact with the ship. WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane instead landed safely. The suborbital spacecraft Virgin Galactic made its first test flight in January and had seating for six passengers and two pilots, each equipped with parachutes. According to expert reports, this time a new fuel mixture was tested.
The TV channel NBC News said witnesses reported seeing at least one parachute near the Mojave space station from which the launch took place. Photographer Ken Brown, who covered the launch, told NBC News that he saw an explosion and witnessed the wreckage was scattered in a small desert area.
The spacecraft remained today more than three hours on the tarmac waiting for a team on the field determines if the conditions were ideal for flying. Engineers who supervised conditions this morning in the Mojave base gave the green light to launch at 09.19 hours (16.19 GMT).
Virgin Galactic had been reporting on the preparations for the departure of Capsule SpaceShipTwo , which was driven by rocket White Knight Two, in what was its thirty-fifth experimental flight. The SpaceShipTwo is the commercial version of SpaceShipOne, the first private spacecraft that exceeded the space frontier in 2004 and is on display in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Air and Space Washington.
The ship was 18 meters long and had a cabin 2.3 meters in diameter, similar in size to a Falcon 900 jet could fly at a speed of 4200 meters per hour at an altitude of 110 kilometers. The portholes of the machine were clearly larger than those of ordinary passenger aircraft. The project is being developed by companies Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites.
flights like today are preparing for suborbital flights to the edge of outer space, over 100 km altitude. Virgin Galactic expected the first voyage of the ship to the edge of outer space had been made by the end of this year if the test flights proved satisfactory. The company’s founder, British billionaire Richard Branson , expected to participate in the first commercial flight next year. The company plans to launch in 2016 the first commercial flights. More than 500 people have already booked your ticket, which costs $ 200,000, including actor Ashton Kutcher and his ex-wife Demi Moore.
The owner of Virgin Galactic, the entrepreneur Richard Branson , has announced it will move to the Mojave Desert after the accident. Branson has been in Twitter’s “thanks for all the messages of support.” . “I’m flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team” has advanced in his first reaction
With Allvirgingalactic Thoughts & amp; 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
second accident in a week
This is the second commercial spaceship that crashes so far this week, after the Antares rocket of the private company Orbital Sciences, carrying over 2 tons of cargo to the International Space Station on Tuesday suffer an explosion in the rocket launch after taking off from an island in Virginia. After the accident, NASA was assured that it maintained its reliance on private companies for space travel.
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