One person died and another was injured Friday when Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo test flight failed following what the company described as a “serious anomaly.”<\/p>\n
The casualties are believed to be the pilots of the aircraft, though California Highway Patrol Officer Jesse Borne did not identify them.<\/p>\n
The injured person has been airlifted to a local hospital, Borne said. He declined to identify the hospital.
\nVirgin Galactic has planned for years to sell trips in which SpaceShipTwo transports passengers about 62 miles above Earth — the beginning of outer space — and let them experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to ground.<\/p>\n
ews of the crash of SpaceShipTwo came just after 10 a.m. local time.<\/p>\n
“During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle,” the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The company has not confirmed the two pilots manning SpaceShipTwo were either killed or injured.<\/p>\n
“We will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident,” the company said on Twitter.<\/p>\n
The incident occurred over the Mojave Desert shortly after SpaceShipTwo separated from WhiteKnightTwo, the vehicle designed to carry it aloft, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It’s the second incident in a week involving the commercial space industry.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, an unmanned Antares rocket exploded just after takeoff off the coast of Virginia. Controllers deliberately destroyed the craft after it became apparent there was a problem, a spokesman for Orbital Sciences Corporation said Thursday.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Credit: CNN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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