UPDATE 11/01/2014: In images released by AP, it is apparent that SpaceShipTwo USS Enterprise suffered an explosion in-flight that caused the breakup of the craft, bringing it down into the Mojave Desert late yesterday morning. There is still no word as to the cause of the explosion. The NTSB has dispatched a “go-team” to the crash site, and Sir Richard Branson is heading there as well. We are waiting to hear from the press conference that is to happen later this morning or early this afternoon from authorities and either Virgin Galactic or Scaled Composites (the absorbed company that performed the testing within the Virgin Group), possibly both. We will keep you updated as things progress.
Photo: AP
10/31/2014: Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise crashed in the Mojave Desert after experiencing an in-flight anomaly that concluded with the loss of the airframe, the second space-related failure this week after the Antares launch abort. The airframe’s shuttle, WhiteKnightTwo, carries the craft up to 50,000ft AGL, where SpaceShipTwo is launched. Virgin Galactic released this statement:
Virgin Galactic’s partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo earlier today. During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle. Our first concern is the status of the pilots, which is unknown at this time. We will work closely with the relevant authorities to determine the cause of the accident and provide updates as soon as we are able to do so.
Virgin Galactic had switched the solid fuel used by SpaceShipTwo from a rubber-based HTPB fuel to a thermoplastic polyamide mixture in the hopes of attaining better performance out of the engines. The frame was last flown on October 9th, 2014 in an unpowered test, and last performed under power in January 2014, where it achieved a top speed of Mach 1.4 and an altitude of 72,000ft.
Reports from the California Highway Patrol indicate that one pilot has died and another is in critical condition. Due to the altitude, the debris field is expected to be large.
A press conference with further information will take place either late tomorrow morning or early afternoon.
As details come in we will update with more information.
RIP and may the other pilot pull through.
Like the earlier rocket explosion shows as well. We are certainly not quite to routine space runs yet. Still an inherently risky business. Hope they are able to learn and improve from this failure.
I hate to sound callous and rude … but thats two for two when it comes to ‘ privately ‘/corporate funded ‘ Spaceships ‘ this week alone !
My deepest condolences of course to all the families involved .
But perhaps its time we have a serious re-think on the whole concept of Private/Corporate space travel before something monumentally tragic occurs
As opposed to the multitude of government backed space failures? NASA lost two shuttles and numerous rockets. Russia has lost many more. They had and continue to have many more successes. It’s a dangerous operation. But that doesn’t mean the private sector can’t do it and do it safely. There’s going to be accidents. There’s no such thing as a 100% success rate when you’re talking about large quantities of combustible substances. I don’t understand your argument.
Wally Schirra, (while awaiting in the capsule of Apollo 7 for the Launch) mentioned to his Crew “We are sitting on top of one incredible piece of Technology. Each component was built by a company that submitted the Cheapest Bid!
I hope that they are able to figure out what went wrong and continue forward.
As for the cries (and not just the one by ColoradoKid) that private space should be rethought: space travel is not easy. Sometimes a setback such as a launch failure or even the loss of life happens. It is a price that is in the back of everyone’s mind that is associated with all rocket launches (government or private). Even government funded and run space programs experience failure- we lost 14 lives aboard space shuttles, for example. As with any engineered system, the companies that run the respective failed attempts this week will have look at the causes of the failures and fix the systems to prevent future failures. With regard to Orbital’s failure- thankfully SpaceX has an operating system and a contract that continues deliveries to the ISS while Orbital investigates and fixes its issues. If NASA was the only one launching to the ISS and had a failure, the delay could be a problem for those on the ISS. SpaceX provides a sort of redundancy. Sure the Russians are launching to the ISS, but they too have issues with launches as well.
As for Virgin- it is attempting to provide tourist opportunities to the edge of space- not actually orbiting.
One last thought- even if NASA was the only one allowed to go into space, they would still rely on the same companies to provide rockets. NASA does not produce launch vehicles, they buy them.
I think it was Wally S
Wally Schirra, (while awaiting in the capsule of Apollo 7 for the Launch) mentioned to his Crew “We are sitting on top of one incredible piece of Technology. Each component was built by a company that submitted the Cheapest Bid!
Very sad, that one may survive says a lot though.
Early aviation has always been perilous and full of loss.
But I’m all for private space and guys like Burt Rutan, the Government stuff is a boondoggle. They will bounce back, just watch!
Condolences for the lost pilot and best wished for the inured one.
Pushingn the envelope of technology has ever been dangerous, but trying and testing are the only ways tom progress. Think how many were killed and hurt in the development of steam, submersibles, aviation. Even now, in supposedly developed safe commercial aviation, hundreds of people are lost worldwide each year, I don’t see any rush tom abandon it.
With NASA we have SSME’s and “low-cost” (but still very pricey) and relatively low-performance but safe RS-80’s that have given us a history of great reliability and avoided such scenes as main-engine failure in flight at-least. Commercial companies have to push the limits of design and materials and get more power, more power…and it’s been a bad week for commercial space flight. John McCain’s right; we need good rocket motors out there, the surplus-USSR stuff and whatever else is ridiculous.
In a way this is reminding me of the BD-5 aircraft from the seventies. Anybody could build an airframe, sorta, some flew and some crashed at the outset, but in the end the whole thing lived or died (it did the latter) on good engine availability. It takes big organisations and big budgets to supply a market with good motors.
We of-course don’t know what happened in the desert yet but if I were betting on it, I’d go with them simply running combustion chambers too hot in order to make the numbers.
RIP all brave souls who traded their lives to push the edges forward.
Want to point out that the SpaceShip#’s use hybrid rockets of which they are the highest flying and largest examples there of. Basically a solid fuel with a liquid/gaseous oxidizer. Reading the summary above makes me think they got a bit too energetic of a fuel and it ruptured the engine case with overpressure or a burn through based on the updated AP photos (no time scale between the 2nd and 3rd picture).
For a sense of reference, the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters used butyl rubber fuel with ammonium perchlorate as the oxidizer with powdered aluminum as a burn accelerant. I’m pretty sure the previous version used a similar rubber fuel and NO2 as the oxidizer. Advantage to the hybrid is that you can throttle it (with in limits) and definitely shut it off compared to a solid but without the complexity of a liquid system.
There are successful launches all the time, thats how all those sattelites got up there, we only hear about the failures
Anyone remember that old tv series with Andy Griffith as a salvage yard owner building a spacecraft in his junkyard? I would like to see that again
It was called “Salvage 1” I think. I have seen episodes on youtube.
Our best to the families and friends of the brave souls that know the risks but push forward anyways.