Debris at the crash site of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rests in
the Mojave desert, some 30 miles north of Mojave, California, on Oct.
31, 2014.
That suggests that the breakup of SpaceShipTwo was due to something other than an engine explosion, potentially eliminating one flaw that could have forced a reassessment of Richard Branson’s plans for private spaceflight next year.
The rocket showed no signs that the nitrous-oxide-based fuel had burned through, Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in an interview yesterday.
As investigators over the weekend studied the fatal test flight by Virgin Galactic, manufacturers and regulators are assessing possible fallout on his plans for suborbital tourism and the U.S. government’s decision to deploy commercial space taxis to fly into orbit later this decade.
It was the week’s second accident involving a private spacecraft, after an
unmanned supply rocket operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB) exploded seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia. The close-knit space business was already reeling from the failure of the unmanned Orbital rocket on Oct. 28. Then Branson’s SpaceShipTwo was lost on Oct. 31 over California’s Mojave Desert, with one pilot killed and another injured.
Booms Deployed
In the SpaceShipTwo crash the tail booms deployed without the pilot’s command, Hart told reporters at a press conference yesterday.The pilot unlocked the booms, the first of a two-step operation, at about Mach 1.0, earlier than the normal Mach 1.4 speed, he said. The second step, where the booms are deployed, then happened without the pilot moving a lever. The engine operated normally up to the extension of the booms, he said.
It’s too early to draw conclusions about why the ship broke apart, killing one of the two test pilots, Hart said. There’s still “months” to go in the investigation, told reporters.
While the dawning of a second space age has generated a buzz because of the involvement of billionaires such as Branson, Elon Musk, Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos, the loss of a commercial craft designed to haul thrill-seeking tourists, not just cargo, underscored the perils of rocket-powered flight.
First Probe
Virgin Galactic had targeted a 2015 debut for commercial tourism flights with SpaceShipTwo, an enterprise that had attracted celebrity clients from physicist Stephen Hawking to singer Sarah Brightman. Branson said last month that almost 800 would-be space tourists had signed up for the $250,000 trips.The Virgin Galactic flight was the first using a new fuel for the rocket engine, Kevin Mickey, president of SpaceShipTwo’s manufacturer, Scaled Composites LLC, said in a press briefing on Oct. 31. The new formula mixed nitrous oxide, sometimes called laughing gas, with a plastic compound instead of a rubber-based material previously used.
“This was a new fuel formulation again that had been proven and tested on the ground many times,” Mickey said.
It was the fourth flight under power for the rocket engine, he said.
The crash prompted Branson to vow “not to push on blindly” as U.S. investigators started their first probe into a fatal commercial-space accident.
Experience Weightlessness
“To do so would be an insult to all those affected by this tragedy,” a subdued Branson, often seen in public pulling off flamboyant marketing stunts, said at a press conference in California on Nov. 1. “We are going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance, and then move forward together.”Crash debris is strewn over an area about 5 miles (8 kilometers) long, Hart said. “That indicates the likelihood of in-flight breakup,” he said at a briefing at the Mojave airport yesterday.
SpaceShipTwo was designed to make the first stage of its flight to the fringes of space while slung beneath a carrier plane, the WhiteKnightTwo. Virgin used WhiteKnightTwo to take the spacecraft to almost 50,000 feet (15,000 meters). From there, the rocket-powered craft was to climb to 360,000 feet, letting passengers experience weightlessness and dark skies, and view the curvature of the Earth.
Scaled Composites, which manufactured the carrier plane and employed both test pilots, is a unit of Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC)
Spaceline
Virgin Galactic -- backed by Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments PJS -- says it’s still on track to become the world’s first commercial spaceline, having accepted more than $80 million in deposits from a clientele that includes some of the world’s highest net-worth individuals. Branson said the company hasn’t spent any of those deposits.Branson and his son have been planning to be aboard the Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight in spring 2015. That reflected a change from his initial timetable for operations this year.
He said over the weekend that he’s received e-mails from would-be passengers urging him to forge ahead. He offered refunds and said he expects to lose “one or two” customers.
“I think they’ve been patient today and will continue to be patient,” he said.
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