Virgin Galactic passenger spaceship crashes during California test flight

A suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company crashed during a test flight Friday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, killing one crew member and seriously injuring another, officials said.

The co-pilot of the spaceship was killed in the crash, while the pilot ejected and was injured, Kern County Sheriff's spokesman Ray Pruitt said. The pilot was found at the scene and taken to a local hospital, he said.

The vehicle was undergoing its first powered test flight since January over the Mojave Desert, 95 miles north of Los Angeles. The crash came days after another commercial space company, Orbital Sciences Inc., lost a rocket in an explosion in Virginia, moments after liftoff.

Television footage of the Virgin Galactic crash site showed wreckage of the spacecraft lying in two large pieces on the ground.

More than 800 people have paid or put down deposits to eventually fly aboard the spaceship, which is carried to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and released. The spaceship then fires its rocket motor to catapult it to about 62 miles above Earth, giving passengers a view of the planet set against the blackness of space — and a few minutes of weightlessness.

The vehicle is based on a prototype, SpaceShipOne, which 10 years ago won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for becoming the first privately developed manned spacecraft to fly in space.

“During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo,” Virgin said in a tweet, adding: “We will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident and provide updates ASAP.”

The crash was the second accident this week involving a commercial U.S. space company. On Tuesday an Antares rocket built and launched by Orbital Sciences exploded 15 seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.

The crash was a major setback for Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of billionaire Branson's London-based Virgin Group. SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot spacecraft, is aiming to make the world's first commercial suborbital space flights.

Other companies developing passenger suborbital spacecraft include privately owned XCOR Aerospace, which is building a two-person spaceplane called Lynx, and Blue Origin, a startup space company owned by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos.

Reuters