Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes

SpaceShipTwo exploded in flight after the ignition of a rocket, killing one of the pilots on board and seriously injuring the other.

A suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic crashed during a test flight at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, officials said.

Two pilots were aboard the spaceship, which was undergoing its first powered test flight since January. Only one of the pilots was able to parachute to safety.

Stewart Witt, chief executive of Mojave Air and Space Port confirmed one pilot died at the scene and another was taken to hospital.

He said officials cannot "speculate" on the cause of the disaster.

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In a statement, Virgin Galactic says “the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly, resulting in the loss of the vehicle.”

Photographer Ken Brown says the space tourism craft was released from the plane that carries it to high altitude, ignited its rocket motor and then exploded.

Brown says there is wreckage in the desert north of Mojave Air and Space Port. The Associated Press reports that local rescue crews headed to the crash site.

British entrepreneur Richard Branson at the Virgin Galactic hangar at Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, US. Photo: AP

George Whiteside chief executive of Virgin Galactic has spoken at a press conference following the crash.

He said: "Our primary thoughts are with the crew and family and we're doing everything we can for them now.

"I can say that Richard Branson is on his way and he's flying to Mojave and we expect him to be here by tomorrow morning.

"Space is hard and today was a tough day.

"We are going to be supporting the investigation to figure out what happened today.

"We are going to get through it. The future rests in many ways on hard days like this.

"We think we owe it to the people who were flying these vehicles to understand this and to move forward, which is what we are going to do."

More than 800 people have paid or put down deposits to fly aboard the spaceship, which is carried to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and released. The spaceship then fires its rocket motor to catapult it to about 100 km high, giving passengers a view of the planet set against the blackness of space and a few minutes of weightlessness.

Celebrities who have signed up to Virgin's promise of a flight in space include: Leonardo Di Caprio, Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Hawking, Katy Perry, Kate Winslet, Brangelina, Lance Bass.

The spaceship is based on a prototype, called SpaceShipOne, which 10 years ago won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for the first privately developed manned spacecraft to fly in space.

Friday’s test was to be the spaceship’s first powered test flight since January. In May, Virgin Galactic and spaceship developer Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp, switched to an alternative plastic-type of fuel grain for the hybrid rocket motor.

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The accident is the second this week by a U.S. space company. On Tuesday, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded 15 seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.