SAN FRANCISCO
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo space plane crashed Friday in California’s Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and severely injuring another.
“Virgin Galactic’s partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo earlier today,” the company said in a statement. “During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle.”
Images show wreckage strewn across the desert labeled with Virgin’s logo. White Knight 2, the aircraft that carried the SpaceShipTwo, landed safely, the company noted.
“We will work closely with the relevant authorities to determine the cause of the accident and provide updates as soon as we are able to do so,” the statement continued.
The company was testing its space tourism craft, which is ferried by a jet and then launched into sub-orbit.
The crash is an undeniable setback for private spaceflight and the infant space tourism industry. More than 700 passengers have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to travel into space with Virgin Galactic, according to the company, with commercial flights launching as soon as next year.
This is the second major mishap to occur for space travel in less than a week. On Tuesday, an unmanned NASA spacecraft exploded six seconds after launch in Virginia.
The Cygnus cargo spacecraft was launched by the Antares rocket built by Orbital Sciences, with a mission to carry more than 5,000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station.
No one was injured in that “catastrophic failure.”
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