GRcade

Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes during test flight

A suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has crashed during a test flight at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

SpaceShipTwo craft exploded over the Mojave Desert, a witness said. US police confirmed one fatality.

Branson said via Twitter that he was on his way to Mojave following the crash.
CRASH SITE: Parts of the ship were spotted in the Mojave desert, as shown on CNN.

CRASH SITE: Parts of the ship were spotted in the Mojave desert, as shown on CNN.


"Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support. I'm flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team."

Photographer Ken Brown said the space tourism craft was released from the plane that carries it to high altitude, ignited its rocket motor and then exploded.

There was wreckage in the desert north of Mojave Air and Space Port, he said.

Two pilots were aboard the spaceship, which was undergoing its first powered test flight since January. The California Highway Patrol said there was one fatality and one major injury.

More than 800 people have paid or put down deposits to 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 100 kilometres high, giving passengers a view of the planet set against the blackness of space and a few minutes of weightlessness.

The spaceship is based on a prototype, called SpaceShipOne, which 10 years ago won the US$10 million (NZ$12.8 million) Ansari X Prize for the first privately developed manned spacecraft to fly in space.

The test was to be the spaceship's first powered test flight since January. In May, Virgin Galactic and spaceship developer Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp, switched to an alternative plastic-type of fuel grain for the hybrid rocket motor.

The accident is the second this week by a US space company. On Tuesday, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded 15 seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.

[iup=3604314]Xeno[/iup] wrote:Not really, I'm surprised we have so few issues like this. Rocket engines are pretty complex items.

[iup=3607884]Alvin Flummux[/iup] wrote:Jupiter, shepherding the asteroid belt, preventing the accretion of a new planet and/or the bombardment of the inner solar system.


► Link

[iup=3608070]Falsey[/iup] wrote:What about Chelyabinsk?

[iup=3608066]Skarjo[/iup] wrote:If you're so gay for Jupiter then tell that to the dinosaurs, commie.

[iup=3608393]Fatal Exception[/iup] wrote:The belt is made of protoplanet rubbish - The dust and rocks which form the planets before they are planets. Jupiter is so massive that the gravity prevented it (the belt) from forming into an actual planet.

The exploding planet theory has been explored, but has fallen from favour due to it being next to impossible.

[iup=3608406]Qikz[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3608393]Fatal Exception[/iup] wrote:The belt is made of protoplanet rubbish - The dust and rocks which form the planets before they are planets. Jupiter is so massive that the gravity prevented it (the belt) from forming into an actual planet.

The exploding planet theory has been explored, but has fallen from favour due to it being next to impossible.

Ah, change of question then. Is it possible that that planet and therefore asteroid belt formed after the cataclysmic event on earth? :p

[iup=3608788]Qikz[/iup] wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/11214511/Ghosts-created-by-scientists-in-disturbing-lab-experiment.html

This is really cool.