(Newswire.net — November 1, 2014) — Mohave Desert, Calofornia – Space tourism suffered a major setback after Virgins Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed in the Mohave Desert killing one and seriously injuring another pilot. Officials said that spacecraft had an in-flight anomaly during his fifty-fifth test flight.
“Virgin Galactic’s partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of #SpaceShipTwo earlier today,” the according to the VirginGalactic twitter post. “During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo.” According to company, a second aircraft, the White King Two, landed safely.
Virgin Galactic tweeted they “will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident and provide updates ASAP.”
Shortly after the plane had taken off near Mojave Air and Space Port in California, a parachute was spotted, according to NBC News, however, the Associated Press reported that one pilot is dead and other suffered major injures. Officials have not yet reveal the names of the pilots.
“Our primary thoughts at this moment are with the crew and family and were doing everything we can for them now,” Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said during an afternoon press conference.
“This is clearly a massive setback to a company hoping to pioneer a new industry of space tourism,” BBC science editor David Shukman reported, adding that “this will not encourage the long list of celebrity and millionaire customers waiting for their first flight.”
Virgin Galactic is a British commercial spaceflight company within the Virgin Group with plans to provide suborbital and orbital spaceflights to space tourists, suborbital launches for space science missions, and orbital launches of small satellites.
According to a latest Wikipedia update, In September of 2014, Richard Branson announced the projected date for the first commercial flight as February or March of 2015, but in light of this setback that date must be called into question. In order to obtain a Federal Aviation Administration license to carry passengers, spacecraft needs to complete full test missions at full speed and altitude of greater than 62 miles.
There were, however, some serious issues with engines in prior high altitudes test flights, Tom Bower, author of Branson: The Man behind the Mask told the Sunday Times.
“They spent 10 years trying to perfect one engine and failed. They are now trying to use a different engine and get into space in six months. It’s just not feasible,” Bower said.