Richard Branson is set to meet his Virgin
Galactic space team in California's Mojave Desert on Saturday following the
crash of a passenger spaceship being developed by his company that killed one
pilot and seriously injured the other.
The entrepreneur has pledged to keep up the drive for space
travel, saying on the company's web site: "Space is hard - but worth it.
We will persevere and move forward together."
Friday's crash of the
suborbital vehicle, undergoing its first powered test flight since January over
the Mojave, 95 miles (150 km) north of Los Angeles, was the second disaster
suffered by a private space company in less than a week, dealing a blow to the
fledgling commercial space launch industry.
On Tuesday, an
Antares rocket built and launched by Orbital Sciences Corp exploded after liftoff from
Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International
Space Station.
In the Virgin crash,
one pilot body was found in the wreckage, while the second pilot, who ejected
and parachuted to the ground, survived with serious injuries, according to Kern
County Sheriff Donny Youngblood.
The survivor was
found more than a mile from the main wreckage of SpaceShipTwo near the Mojave
Air and Space Port, he said.
Television footage of
the crash site showed wreckage of the spacecraft lying in two large pieces on
the ground, and the company said the spacecraft was destroyed. Youngblood said
a debris field was spread over more than a mile.
Both crew members
were test pilots for Scaled Composites, the Northrop Grumman Corp subsidiary
that designed and built the spacecraft for Virgin and lost three other
employees in a July 2007 ground test accident.
"While not a NASA
mission, the pain of this (new)tragedy will be felt by all the men and women
who have devoted their lives to exploration," NASA, the U.S. space agency,
said in a statement.
NEW FUEL
The crash occurred
shortly after the craft separated from the jet airplane that carried it aloft
for its high-altitude launch.
Scaled Composites
President Kevin Mickey told a news conference on Friday the ill-fated flight
was the first using a new rocket fuel formula the company switched to in May.
He said the formula "had been proven and tested on the ground" before
Friday's test launch.
The U.S. National
Transportation Safety Board said it was sending one of its teams to
investigate.
More than 800 people
have paid or put down deposits to eventually fly aboard the spaceship, which is
hauled to an altitude of about 45,000 feet (13.7 kms) and released by Virgin's
White Knight Two carrier jet airplane.
Cost of a ride on the
ship now goes for $250,000 and among those who have signed up are celebrities
including singer Lady Gaga and actors Angelina Jolie and Ashton Kutcher.
The Virgin and Antares
back-to-back accidents are set backs for he commercial space launch industry,
which has been taking on more work traditionally done by the governments while
also expanding for-profit space markets,
including tourism.
Culled from Reuters News
Culled from Reuters News
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