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October 31, 2014
SpaceShipTwo space plane crashed Friday late afternoon. The accident left one person dead and one injured, police said.
Image above: The space plane sustained serious damage, while on a test above the Mojave Desert. According to KABC, the accident caused one death and one wounded.
The space plane SpaceShipTwo from Virgin Galactic crashed, says the site information Californian Kern Golden Empire, quoting the director of the Air Base and the Mojave Space Stu Witt. One of the two pilots of the space plane SpaceShipTwo from Virgin Galactic is dead and another is seriously injured, police said Friday.
One dead in space plane crash
"There is one dead and one seriously injured was transported to a nearby structure," said Sergeant M. Singer.
"SpaceShipTwo suffered a" flight anomaly, "said Virgin Galactic on Twitter. "The condition of the pilot" is "unknown," said the firm British billionaire Richard Branson.
SpaceShipTwo
"The partner of Virgin Galactic, Scaled Composites company, conducted a test flight of SpaceShipTwo" Friday, said Virgin Galactic on Twitter.
"Grave anomaly"
"During this test, the ship suffered a serious anomaly which has resulted in the loss of SpaceShipTwo," while the plane called "WhiteKnightTwo" (White Knight 2) who had transported hooked under her wings "landed safely," says Virgin.
WhiteKnightTwo carrying SpaceShipTwo
"Our main concern is the status of drivers, unknown at this time," says the space company. "We will work closely with the authorities to determine the cause of the accident," she says.
This ship passengers, whose ambition is to fly tourists to the edge of space, take off from the Mojave Desert at 18:30 local time.
Incident occurred after the separation of SpaceShipTwo
The US Federal Aviation and Aerospace (FAA) for its part, said in a statement that "ground controllers of the space base of the Mojave have lost touch with SpaceShipTwo, a vehicle of experimental space flight."
"The incident happened shortly after separating from his ship WhiteKnightTwo launch vehicle," said FAA investigation into the incident.
The flamboyant Richard Branson, who saw one of the most bitter setbacks in his career, tweeted that his "thoughts were with Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites" and he would "immediately take a plane to (Mojave Desert) to be with the team."
Images above: SpaceShipTwo to launch a test flight with a new fuel rocket engine, for the moment, the current investigation will tell whether it is responsible for the explosion that undergoes SpaceShipTwo flight shortly after her separation from the WhiteKnightTwo and the rocket engine is started.
Two pilots and six passengers
SpaceShipTwo has two pilots and can carry six passengers. This is the commercial version of SpaceShipOne, the first private space plane that reached the edge of space in 2004.
Hundreds of people have already made reservations for a suborbital flight a few minutes of weightlessness aboard SpaceShipTwo, making an advance payment on the $ 200,000 that is the ticket.
For more information about Virgin Galactic and WhiteKnightTwo, SpaceShipTwo, visit: http://www.virgingalactic.com/
Images, Video, Text, Credits: AFP/KABC/Virgin Galactic/Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.
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