Virgin Galactic's latest plane/rocket, dubbed "SpaceShipTwo", crashed after takeoff this morning above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Director Stu Witt told Bakersfield, California's KGET that the plane crashed east of Mojave.
Virgin Galactic initially reported an "anomaly" with the ship, and is now reporting the ship as a "loss." The company's Twitter account says the status of the two pilots is "unknown at this time." It's not clear what caused said "anomaly," nor is it clear how the ship crashed.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is an eight-person plane/spaceship combination. This morning's flight in Mojave, California was a test conducted by Virgin Galactic's partner Scaled Composites. It took off from a runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port just after 9AM PT, slung beneath its plane component ("WhiteKnightTwo"). 45 minutes later, it reached 50,000 feet and the rocket component (SpaceShipTwo) was freed for solo flight. Virgin Galactic reported an "anomaly" with the ship soon after, via Twitter.
This isn't SpaceShipTwo's first test flight -- a successful test flight was completed last summer. The ship even has a lengthy list of passengers waiting to ride to sub-orbital flight, including Virgin owner Richard Branson. It's been a bad week for space flight, as Orbital Science's unmanned "Antares" aircraft exploded at launch on Tuesday.
