Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo was destroyed during a powered test flight today in Mojave, CA. According to a statement issued by the company, "During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle. The WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft landed safely."
According to the Associated Press, a witness to the incident said that the spacecraft exploded in-flight. However, during a press conference this afternoon, Mojave Spaceport CEO Stuart Witt claimed that he didn't witness any explosion.
There were two pilots on board the craft. Local law enforcement agencies have confirmed that one of the pilots was killed during the accident and the other was injured and evacuated to a nearby hospital.
Virgin Galactic's spacecraft are being built and tested by Scaled Composites, the company that built the first private spacecraft to travel into space ten years ago this month. Both test pilots were employees of Scaled Composites.
During the press conference, Scaled Composites President Kevin Mickey stated that he expected the investigation into the causes of the crash to take several days.
This was the fourth powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo. The rocket engine in the first three successful flights had been developed in conjunction with Sierra Nevada Corporation.
However, in a statement issued by Sierra Nevada today, the company stated that its "technical and program involvement ended in May of 2014 with Virgin Galactic’s announcement to use its own internally developed technology for the SS2 rocket motor. SNC had no involvement in the build or qualification testing of the motor used in this flight, nor in the integration of this motor to SS2. SNC was not engaged in any manner in the pre-flight safety or technical approvals or in the flight operations of the mission conducted today."
During the press conference, Mickey insisted that the motor was the essentially the same except for a new mix of fuel.
"We were flying a rocket motor today that had been tested on the ground in a qualification series. We expected no issue," he said.
In a statement issued today, the FAA stated that it would be investigating this accident. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a tweet saying that it was also going to be investigating. NTSB investigators are expected on the ground at 7:30am Pacific Time.
Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson stated that he is "flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team." He is also expected to arrive tomorrow morning.
This is the second failure of a U.S. spacecraft this week. On Tuesday evening, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket was destroyed shortly after liftoff due to a failure that is as yet unidentified.
"Space is hard. And today was a tough day. We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened today and we’re going to get through it," Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said during the press conference. "The future rests in many ways on hard days like this. But we believe we owe it to the folks who were flying these vehicles as well as the folks who worked so hard on them to move forward. And that’s what we’ll do."
