American Space Preeminence: Fwd: NTSB says SS2 'feather' braking system deployed early

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: November 3, 2014 5:46:13 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NTSB says SS2 'feather' braking system deployed early

NTSB says SS2 'feather' braking system deployed early
11/03/2014 01:35 AM
By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

Investigators looking into the fatal crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane said Sunday twin tail booms that rotate away from the fuselage to increase drag during atmospheric re-entry deployed earlier than expected during a test flight Friday. Seconds later, the futuristic spaceplane broke apart while traveling at roughly the speed of sound, injuring one pilot and killing the other.

Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters late Sunday that investigators had been able to review at least some of the on-board video from a half-dozen cameras, along with stored telemetry, and while the results do not yet indicate a root cause of the mishap, the data do show the sequence of events.

"What I'm about to say is a statement of fact and not a statement of cause," Hart said. "We are a long way from finding cause, we still have months and months of investigation, there's a lot that we don't know."
In this artist's rendering, SpaceShipTwo's twin tail booms are deployed, or "feathered," for atmospheric entry, swinging up with respect to the rocket plane's fuselage to increase drag and slow the craft for a more benign plunge back into the atmosphere. During a test flight Friday, the feather system deployed prematurely, followed seconds later by vehicle breakup. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)

The flight got underway Friday with SpaceShipTwo carried aloft by a twin-fuselage carrier jet known as WhiteKnightTwo that took off from Mojave, Calif., where spaceplane-builder Scaled Composites is based.

Pilot Peter Siebold, director of flight operations for Scaled, and co-pilot Michael Alsbury, were at the controls when the rocket plane was released from WhiteKnightTwo at an altitude of roughly 50,000 feet above the Mojave Desert.

After a short free fall, the pilots fired the ship's hybrid rocket motor, burning nitrous oxide with solid propellant to begin a steep climb. Seconds later, the aircraft broke apart in a cloud of debris that fell to the Mojave Desert along a five-mile-long swath.

Siebold managed to escape the wreckage and parachute back to Earth, enduring unspecified injuries. Alsbury, a 39-year-old father of two, was killed.

It was the first powered flight for SpaceShipTwo since January and the first featuring a new fuel mixture intended to improve performance as Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites worked to complete a long test program before beginning commercial flights next spring.

Based on witness accounts, some speculated the hybrid motor might have malfunctioned, triggering the mishap.

But Hart said Sunday that investigators "found the fuel tanks, the oxidizer tanks and the engine, and all were intact, showed no signs of burn through, no signs of being breached."

Instead, investigators found video evidence and telemetry indicating SpaceShipTwo's twin tail booms, known as "feathers," apparently deployed prematurely.

The tail booms extend straight away to the rear of the spaceplane's fuselage during normal powered flight. Designed by famed aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, the booms, or feathers, are intended to rotate upward with respect to the fuselage during atmospheric entry to increase drag, slowing the craft down and easing stresses on the vehicle.

"The spaceship was released normally and shortly after it was released, the rocket engine ignited," Hart said. "About nine seconds after the engine ignited, the telemetry data told us the feather parameters changed from locked to unlocked. Now, in order for feathering, this action to be commanded by the pilots, two actions must occur. One is, the lock-unlock handle most be moved from locked to unlocked and number two is, the feathering handle must be moved to the feather position.

"Approximately two seconds after the feathering parameters indicated that the lock-unlock lever was moved from lock to unlock, the feathers moved toward the extended position, the deploy position, even though the feather handle itself had not been moved. This occurred at a speed just above approximately Mach 1.0.

Seconds later, telemetry and video ceased as the vehicle broke apart.

"The engine burn was normal up until the extension of the feathers," Hart said. "There is a camera in the cockpit -- there are several cameras in the space vehicle -- there's a camera in the cockpit mounted on the ceiling that looks forward and shows the actions of the pilots and the instruments.

"And review of that camera is consistent with telemetry data and shows that the feather lock-unlock lever was moved by the co-pilot from the lock position to the unlock position. Normal launch procedures are that after the release (from the WhiteKnightTwo carrier jet), ignition of the rocket and acceleration, that the feathering devices are not to be moved, the lock-unlock lever is not to be moved into the unlock position, until the acceleration is up to Mach 1.4. As I indicated, that occurred at approximately Mach 1.0."

In any case, simply unlocking the mechanism should not have triggered deployment. The second action normally required to deploy the feather -- moving the feathering handle to the deploy position -- did not occur. How the mechanism could activate in the absence of the second step is not yet known.

It also was not immediately clear how the ship's aerodynamic stability was affected by a premature feather deploy at a lower velocity than planned.

Hart re-emphasized that investigators were drawing no conclusions yet and that "months and months of investigation" will be needed to determine the root cause of the mishap.

"We'll be looking at training issues, we'll be looking at was there pressure to continue testing, we'll be looking at safety culture, we'll be looking at the design, the procedures, we've got many, many issues to look into much more extensively before we can determine the cause."

Asked specifically if pilot error was a factor, Hart said "we are not ruling anything out. We are looking at all of these issues to determine what was the root cause of this mishap. We are looking at a number of possibilities, including that possibility."
NTSB investigators examine WhiteKnightTwo, the carrier jet that launched a commercial rocket planet Friday. The rocket plane -- Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo -- crashed shortly after its hybrid rocket motor ignited, killing one pilot and injuring another. (Credit: NTSB)

The crash was a devastating setback to Virgin Galactic and its founder Richard Branson, one of the leaders in the push to commercialize space travel, and a disheartening tragedy for the tight-knit group of test pilots, engineers and designers based at the Mojave Air and Space Port that have been working for the past decade to turn the dream of commercial spaceflight into reality.

The mishap has given fresh ammunition to critics of commercial space, who claim only the super rich can afford private spaceflight and that the risks outweigh any potential benefits. Supporters argue private industry, unshackled by government bureaucracy and regulations that stifle innovation, is best suited to turn space travel into a viable industry open to average citizens.

Branson created Virgin Galactic after Scaled Composites, founded by Rutan, won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004, becoming the first private company to send a manned spacecraft -- SpaceShipOne -- higher than 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, the generally agreed-on boundary of space.

Virgin Galactic entered into a partnership with Scaled to build a much larger space plane -- SpaceShipTwo -- capable of carrying a crew of two and four to six passengers out of the dense lower atmosphere for brief sub-orbital forays into the weightless environment of space. After several delays and false starts, Branson was hoping to begin commercial operations next spring.

But the loss of SpaceShipTwo has put those plans on hold indefinitely.

In a statement released earlier Sunday, Virgin Galactic warned against premature speculation, saying safety was the company's top priority and "any suggestion to the contrary is categorically untrue."

"We have the privilege to work with some of the best minds in the space industry, who have dedicated their lives to the development of technologies to enable the continued exploration of space," the statement said. "All of us at Virgin Galactic understand the importance of our mission and the significance of creating the first ever commercial spaceline. This is not a mission that anyone takes lightly."

The statement went on to say "we have been overwhelmed and grateful for the outpouring of support we have received from our future astronauts, friends in the industry and people all over the world who are inspired by the work our industry is doing and who are urging us to continue."

"Now is not the time for speculation," the company said. "Now is the time to focus on all those affected by this tragic accident and to work with the experts at the NTSB, to get to the bottom of what happened on that tragic day, and to learn from it so that we can move forward safely with this important mission."

© 2014 William Harwood/CBS News

Virgin Galactic rocket plane deployed braking system prematurely
November 3, 2014 by Stephen Clark
NTSB acting chairman Christopher Hart describes SpaceShipTwo's feathering system in a media briefing Sunday. Credit: NTSB
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane disintegrated in mid-air after two tail stabilizers prematurely extended, federal investigators said Sunday, a discovery that could shift the focus of the probe into Friday's fatal crash away from the craft's rocket motor.
But the National Transportation Safety Board's acting chairman Christopher Hart cautioned against jumping to conclusions.
"What I'm about to say is a statement of fact and not a statement of cause," Hart said. "We are a long way from finding cause. We still have months and months of investigation to do, and there's a lot that we don't know. We have extensive data sources to go through."
An analysis of telemetry and video recorded aboard the doomed space plane has revealed SpaceShipTwo's novel braking system deployed earlier than designed.
The rocket plane's rear-mounted feathering system is supposed to extend before the ship descends back into the atmosphere from space, slowing SpaceShipTwo's speed and putting the craft into a belly-down position during re-entry.
But SpaceShipTwo's twin tail booms rotated upward seconds after it fired a hybrid rocket motor following a drop from Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane 50,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert.
SpaceShipTwo's feathering system is seen deployed on a test flight in 2011. Credit: Clay Center Observatory/Virgin Galactic
The NTSB is leading the investigation into Friday's crash, and Hart said Sunday that ShipShipTwo's co-pilot moved a lever inside the space plane's cockpit to unlock the tail feathers, which are normally pointed toward the rear of the vehicle when it flies under rocket power.
The co-pilot on Friday's flight — 39-year-old Michael Alsbury — died in the accident. Alsbury's co-workers at Scaled Composites, builder of SpaceShipTwo, have established a memorial fund.
Pilot Peter Siebold, 43, was able to get free of the space plane and parachute to the ground. He was hospitalized with serious injuries.
The rocket's hybrid rocket motor, consuming a mix of nitrous oxide and a plastic-based solid fuel mix, ignited a few seconds after SpaceShipTwo's release from the carrier aircraft. Friday's test flight marked the first time the rocket motor was used on SpaceShipTwo since Virgin Galactic switched from a rubber-based to a plastic-based fuel.
"About nine seconds after the engine ignited, the telemetry data showed us that the feather parameters changed from lock to unlock," Hart said.
According to Hart, a camera mounted inside SpaceShipTwo's cockpit showed Alsbury move a handle to unlock the feather system as the rocket plane passed Mach 1 — the speed of sound.
Such action on a SpaceShipTwo flight is not expected until the rocket plane reaches Mach 1.4, Hart told reporters in a press conference Sunday night in Mojave, Calif.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vjYVhGvUSNc
"Normal launch procedures are that after the release, the ignition of the rocket and acceleration, that the feathering devices are not to be moved — the lock/unlock lever is not to be moved into the unlock position — until the acceleration up to Mach 1.4. Instead, as indicated, that occurred (at) approximately Mach 1.0," Hart said.
The tail booms extended after they were unlocked, even though they were not commanded to do so, Hart said. SpaceShipTwo's pilots normally must unlock the feathers, then send a separate command to move the tail booms into position for descent.
"This was what we would call an uncommanded feather, which means the feather occurred without the feather lever being moved into the feather position," Hart said.
"After it was unlocked, the feathers moved into the deployed position, and two seconds later we saw disintegration," Hart said.
"Shortly after the feathering occurred, the telemtry data terminated and the video data terminated," Hart said.
The video embedded below shows how SpaceShipTwo's feathering system works from a camera attached to one of the ship's tail booms on a previous flight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pwm3leZu-O0

The performance of SpaceShipTwo's rocket motor, which was flying for the first time with a new type of propellant, was normal up until the extension of the rocket plane's tail feathers, according to Hart.
Investigators combing the five-mile-long debris field have located SpaceShipTwo's rocket motor and propellant tanks, which were found intact and show no sign of burn-through or breaching, according to Hart. Some of the rocket plane's wreckage has been moved into hangars for examination.
Six video cameras and six data recorders on-board SpaceShipTwo will also help the investigation, Hart said, along with footage from the space plane's carrier plane, ground-based imagers, and eyewitness interviews. Investigators also planned to interview Siebold, the surviving pilot.
When asked if Sunday's revelation would put the focus of the investigation on pilot error, Hart said the NTSB is not ruling anything out.
"We are looking at a number of possibilities, including that possibility," Hart said.
"I want to emphasize that we have not determined the cause," Hart said. "I am not stating that this is the cause of this mishap. We have months and months of investigation to determine what the cause was. We'll be looking at training issues, we'll be looking at was there pressure to continue testing, we'll be looking at safety culture. We'll be looking at the design (and) the procedure. We've got many, many issues to look into much more extensively before we can determine the cause.
"There is much that we don't know, and our investigation is far from over."
Friday's test flight was the next step to realize Virgin Galactic's plans to start operational service with SpaceShipTwo by next spring, ferrying paying passengers to a speed three-and-a-half times the speed of sound at an altitude of more than 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, above Earth — the internationally-recognized boundary of space.
Passengers at that altitude could unstrap from their seats and float around the rocket plane's six-person cabin for a few minutes before gliding back to the ground for landing on a runway.
Virgin Galactic issued a statement Sunday defending the company's safety record and urging against speculation on the cause of Friday's mishap.
"At Virgin Galactic, we are dedicated to opening the space frontier, while keeping safety as our 'North Star'. This has guided every decision we have made over the past decade, and any suggestion to the contrary is categorically untrue," the company said.
"We have the privilege to work with some of the best minds in the space industry, who have dedicated their lives to the development of technologies to enable the continued exploration of space," the company said. "All of us at Virgin Galactic understand the importance of our mission and the significance of creating the first ever commercial spaceline. This is not a mission that anyone takes lightly."
The company, founded by Virgin Group's Richard Branson, said it would not comment on the investigation while the NTSB is doing its work.
"Now is not the time for speculation," the company said. "Now is the time to focus on all those affected by this tragic accident and to work with the experts at the NTSB, to get to the bottom of what happened on that tragic day, and to learn from it so that we can move forward safely with this important mission."

© 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.

Key function of crashed Virgin spacecraft deployed early: investigators

By Irene Klotz

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By Irene Klotz
MOJAVE Calif. (Reuters) - An investigation into the deadly crash of a Virgin Galactic spaceship has found that a function to help the craft descend into the atmosphere was deployed early, a federal safety official said on Sunday, adding pilot error could not be ruled out.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is leading the investigation into what caused the spacecraft to crash in California's Mojave Desert during a test flight on Friday, killing one pilot and badly injuring the other.
SpaceShipTwo's rotating tail boom, a key safety feature for re-entering the atmosphere, rotated early, Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the NTSB, said late on Sunday, though he said it was too early to say whether this had caused the crash.
Virgin Galactic is the fledgling space tourism company of billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson.
Hart told a news conference that investigators had determined the "feathering" system, which helps it descend into the atmosphere from space, should have been deployed when the vehicle was traveling about 1.4 times the speed of sound.
View gallery

Wreckage lies near the site where a Virgin Galactic space tourism rocket, SpaceShipTwo, exploded and …
Instead, the feather began rotating when the rocket-powered vehicle was traveling at Mach 1, he said, using a technical term for the speed of sound at a given altitude.
Hart said the feathering system, which folds the vehicle in half to create more atmospheric drag, was unlocked early by the co-pilot, according to video from the spaceship's cockpit. About two seconds later, the spaceplane's tail section began to fold.
"I'm not stating that this is the cause of the mishap. We have months and months of investigation to determine what the cause was," Hart said.
Asked if the NTSB was considering the possibility of pilot error, Hart said: "We are not ruling anything out. We are looking at all of these issues to determine what was the root cause of this mishap … We are looking at a number of possibilities, including that possibility (of pilot error)."
NO EXPLOSION
Federal investigators search for clues into Virgin … Play video

SpaceShipTwo was released normally from its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, at an altitude of about 45,000 feet. Shortly afterwards its hybrid rocket motor, which was flying for the first time with a new plastic propellant, ignited as planned, Hart said.
Investigators also recovered SpaceShipTwo's propellant tanks and engine intact, indicating there was no explosion.
"The engine burn was normal up until the extension of the feathers," Hart told reporters.
SpaceShipTwo was conducting test flights and was not yet certified for commercial operations when the crash occurred, delaying indefinitely the start of passenger service.
George Whitesides, the head of the company dedicated to Branson's vision of bringing everyday passengers into space, told the Financial Times the new fuel system used in Virgin's SpaceShipTwo on Friday had been rigorously tested.
Investigators look into Virgin galactic crash whil … Play video

Branson and his son plan to fly on the first commercial flight. About 800 people already have paid or put down deposits for the ride, which costs $250,000.
On Saturday Branson vowed to find out what caused his space tourism company's passenger spaceship to crash, but expressed a desire to press on with the dream of commercial space flight.
The two pilots involved were employees of Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman Corp subsidiary that designed and built the six-passenger, two-pilot craft for Virgin Galactic.
Michael Alsbury, 39, has been identified as the co-pilot who died. Peter Siebold, the 43-year-old pilot riding in the right-hand seat, parachuted to the ground and was recovering at a nearby hospital, Scaled Composites said in a statement.
"We owe it to our pilots to find out exactly what went wrong," Branson said in Mojave on Saturday. "If we can overcome it, we will make absolutely certain that the dream lives on."
Friday's crash was the second disaster in less than a week suffered by a private space company.
On Tuesday, an Antares rocket built and launched by Orbital Sciences Corp exploded after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.
Virgin Galactic is a U.S. offshoot of the London-based Virgin Group founded by Branson, whose empire ranges from airlines to music stores and mobiles phones.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Copyright © 2014 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Virgin Galactic Spaceship's 'Feathering' Descent System Eyed in Deadly Crash
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | November 03, 2014 01:15am ET
Christopher Hart, Acting Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, holds a model of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space plane with its twin tail booms in the "feathered" position. Hart said Nov. 2 that SpaceShipTwo's feathering descent system deployed prematurely during Virgin Galactic's fatal crash in California's Mojave Desert on Oct. 31, 2014.
Credit: National Transportation Safety Board View full size image
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space plane broke apart just after its "feathering" re-entry system deployed early during a tragic test flight on Friday (Oct. 31) that left one pilot dead and another injured, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
SpaceShipTwo's twin rudders can be "feathered," or rotated up, to increase drag and stability when the vehicle heads back down toward Earth. During Friday's SpaceShipTwo crash, this maneuver should have been performed when the suborbital space plane was traveling at Mach 1.4 (1.4 times the speed of sound), but it actually happened at Mach 1.0, NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said late Sunday (Nov. 2).
"The feathers moved into the deploy position, and two seconds later, we saw disintegration," Hart said during a news conference. [Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crash: Full Coverage]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vjYVhGvUSNc&list=UUe5dWbxxvQqDAHmyMrEF7Kw
This news about the feather system is "a statement of fact and not a statement of cause," Hart said. "We are a long way from finding cause. We still have months and months of investigation to do."
SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers up past 328,000 feet altitude (100 kilometers), the point where astronaut wings are awarded. See how Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo works in this SPACE.com infographic.
Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com contributor
View full size image
The NTSB is leading the investigation into the crash, which killed SpaceShipTwo co-pilot Michael Alsbury and sent pilot Peter Siebold to the hospital. An NTSB "Go-Team" arrived in Mojave, California on Saturday morning (Nov. 1) to begin this work. SpaceShipTwo took off from Mojave Air and Space Port under the wing of its carrier plane WhiteKnightTwo to carry out Friday's ill-fated test flight.
Hart said that the NTSB team located SpaceShipTwo's fuel tanks and engine, which showed no signs of an in-flight explosion.
"The fuel tanks were found intact, with no indication of breach or burn-through, and so was the engine as well," Hart said.
Two things need to happen for SpaceShipTwo's feather system to be commanded by the spacecraft's pilots, Hart said: A lever must be moved to the "unlock" position, and a handle must be moved to the "feather" position.
The first of these actions was performed on Friday — video taken from inside the cockpit shows the co-pilot moving the lever — but the second action with the handle was not performed, Hart said, describing the maneuver as "an uncommanded feather." It took place 9 seconds after SpaceShipTwo's rocket engine kicked on.
SpaceShipTwo is designed to be carried to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) by WhiteKnightTwo. At this point, the six-passenger space plane is dropped, and its rocket engine turns on, launching SpaceShipTwo up into suborbital space. About 700 people have put down deposits for such a ride, which currently costs $250,000.
That's how things will work when the vehicle is fully up and running. But for now, SpaceShipTwo remains in the test phase; Friday's mission was its fourth rocket-powered test flight, and its 55th test flight of any kind.
Virgin Galactic issued a new statement Sunday stressing its commitment to safe operations.
"At Virgin Galactic, we are dedicated to opening the space frontier, while keeping safety as our 'North Star.' This has guided every decision we have made over the past decade, and any suggestion to the contrary is categorically untrue, " Virgin Galactic representatives wrote.
"We have the privilege to work with some of the best minds in the space industry, who have dedicated their lives to the development of technologies to enable the continued exploration of space," they added. "All of us at Virgin Galactic understand the importance of our mission and the significance of creating the first-ever commercial spaceline. This is not a mission that anyone takes lightly."

Copyright © 2014 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved.

Spacecraft's Rocket Motor Landed Intact, NTSB Chief Says
By Alan Levin and James Nash 2014-11-03T08:30:46Z

Photographer: Michael Nelson/EPA
Debris at the crash site of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rests in the Mojave desert, some 30 miles north of Mojave, California, on Oct. 31, 2014.
The rocket engine on the Virgin Galactic Ltd. spacecraft that broke apart on a test flight landed intact without obvious signs of damage, according to a preliminary assessment by U.S. investigators.
That suggests that the breakup of SpaceShipTwo was due to something other than an engine explosion, potentially eliminating one flaw that could have forced a reassessment of Richard Branson's plans for private spaceflight next year.
The rocket showed no signs that the nitrous-oxide-based fuel had burned through, Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in an interview yesterday.
Space Taxis
As investigators over the weekend studied the fatal test flight by Virgin Galactic, manufacturers and regulators are assessing possible fallout on his plans for suborbital tourism and the U.S. government's decision to deploy commercial space taxis to fly into orbit later this decade.
It was the week's second accident involving a private spacecraft, after an unmanned supply rocket operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB) exploded seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia. The close-knit space business was already reeling from the failure of the unmanned Orbital rocket on Oct. 28. Then Branson's SpaceShipTwo was lost on Oct. 31 over California's Mojave Desert, with one pilot killed and another injured.
Booms Deployed
In the SpaceShipTwo crash the tail booms deployed without the pilot's command, Hart told reporters at a press conference yesterday.
The pilot unlocked the booms, the first of a two-step operation, at about Mach 1.0, earlier than the normal Mach 1.4 speed, he said. The second step, where the booms are deployed, then happened without the pilot moving a lever. The engine operated normally up to the extension of the booms, he said.
It's too early to draw conclusions about why the ship broke apart, killing one of the two test pilots, Hart said. There's still "months" to go in the investigation, told reporters.
While the dawning of a second space age has generated a buzz because of the involvement of billionaires such as Branson, Elon Musk, Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos, the loss of a commercial craft designed to haul thrill-seeking tourists, not just cargo, underscored the perils of rocket-powered flight.
First Probe
Virgin Galactic had targeted a 2015 debut for commercial tourism flights with SpaceShipTwo, an enterprise that had attracted celebrity clients from physicist Stephen Hawking to singer Sarah Brightman. Branson said last month that almost 800 would-be space tourists had signed up for the $250,000 trips.
The Virgin Galactic flight was the first using a new fuel for the rocket engine, Kevin Mickey, president of SpaceShipTwo's manufacturer, Scaled Composites LLC, said in a press briefing on Oct. 31. The new formula mixed nitrous oxide, sometimes called laughing gas, with a plastic compound instead of a rubber-based material previously used.
"This was a new fuel formulation again that had been proven and tested on the ground many times," Mickey said.
It was the fourth flight under power for the rocket engine, he said.
The crash prompted Branson to vow "not to push on blindly" as U.S. investigators started their first probe into a fatal commercial-space accident.
Experience Weightlessness
"To do so would be an insult to all those affected by this tragedy," a subdued Branson, often seen in public pulling off flamboyant marketing stunts, said at a press conference in California on Nov. 1. "We are going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance, and then move forward together."
Crash debris is strewn over an area about 5 miles (8 kilometers) long, Hart said. "That indicates the likelihood of in-flight breakup," he said at a briefing at the Mojave airport yesterday.
SpaceShipTwo was designed to make the first stage of its flight to the fringes of space while slung beneath a carrier plane, the WhiteKnightTwo. Virgin used WhiteKnightTwo to take the spacecraft to almost 50,000 feet (15,000 meters). From there, the rocket-powered craft was to climb to 360,000 feet, letting passengers experience weightlessness and dark skies, and view the curvature of the Earth.
Scaled Composites, which manufactured the carrier plane and employed both test pilots, is a unit of Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC)
Spaceline
Virgin Galactic -- backed by Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments PJS -- says it's still on track to become the world's first commercial spaceline, having accepted more than $80 million in deposits from a clientele that includes some of the world's highest net-worth individuals. Branson said the company hasn't spent any of those deposits.
Branson and his son have been planning to be aboard the Virgin Galactic's first commercial flight in spring 2015. That reflected a change from his initial timetable for operations this year.
He said over the weekend that he's received e-mails from would-be passengers urging him to forge ahead. He offered refunds and said he expects to lose "one or two" customers.
"I think they've been patient today and will continue to be patient," he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Levin in Washington at alevin24@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net Bernard Kohn, James Callan

© 2014 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved.

'Pilot error' may have contributed to SpaceShipTwo's crash, NTSB says
Just before SpaceShipTwo broke apart in midair Friday, the tail lifted prematurely after the co-pilot changed the aerodynamic controls, the leader of the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday night.
Two levers were supposed to be pulled when the spacecraft reached Mach 1.4, allowing an action called "feathering" -- which lifts the tail to slow descent and create drag. Instead, a video in the cockpit and other data showed that one of the levers was unlocked early at Mach 1.0, NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart told reporters.
About two seconds later, the tail moved into the extended position, even though a second "feather" handle was not moved, Hart said.
"Pilot error is a possibility," Hart said. "We're a long way from finding cause."
The investigation into the fatal crash in the desert about 20 miles northeast of Mojave is to continue Monday, and he has said a final report could take as long as year.
NTSB investigators found the plane's fuel tanks, oxidizer tanks and engine Sunday among the wreckage, Hart said. All those parts were intact, with no signs of having burned through or of being breached, he said.
Also on Sunday, Virgin Galactic's chief executive said the company was planning to finish work on a second rocket plane by year's end.
"The second spaceship is very advanced in its construction," George Whitesides said. "We need to work closely with the NTSB … to work out as rapidly as we can what happened, and then to move forward. We're hopeful we can make rapid progress."
Friday's test flight of SpaceShipTwo was the first time it was to fly by firing a new rocket motor using a plastic-based fuel – leading to speculation that the engine may have been a factor in the crash.
Until May, SpaceShipTwo had used a different motor that burned a rubber-based fuel.
Whitesides said he couldn't talk about the accident during the investigation. When asked if the company would continue testing the new engine on the ground, he said, "I think the short answer is 'yes.'"
The engine had passed ground tests before Friday's flight that satisfied engineers who determined it was "qualified" to be tested in flight. That process, he said, involved "a small number of firings in a row to make sure you get the same result."
"We have qualified the engine that we were putting into flight tests," he said. "I'm sure that we will continue that work."
He added, "As we've always said, we expect to continue to improve all our systems as time goes on just like any manufacturer would."
In a statement released Sunday, Virgin Galactic said "no one wants to know more than we do" what happened on Friday.
"We are dedicated to opening the space frontier, while keeping safety as our 'North Star,'" the statement said. "This has guided every decision we have made over the past decade, and any suggestion to the contrary is categorically untrue. ... Everything we do is to pursue the vision of accessible and democratized space – and to do it safely."
Whiteside said Virgin Galactic had spent $500 million so far in its quest to fly tourists into space. The company had insurance, he said, that would help cover the cost of Friday's crash.
Test pilot Michael Alsbury, 39, died in the crash. His body was found near the fuselage of the main wreckage, authorities said.
Surviving pilot Peter Siebold, 43, suffered a shoulder injury and was "alert and talking with his family and doctors" on Saturday, according to Scaled Composites, the company that designed SpaceShipTwo.
Times staff writer Petersen reported from Mojave and Raab from Los Angeles.
Follow @MelodyPetersen and @raablauren on Twitter
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
UPDATES
10 p.m.: This post has been updated with more information from the NTSB press conference.
9:24 p.m.: This post has been updated to include comments from NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart.
8:11 p.m.: This post has been updated to include comments from Virgin Galactic.
The first version of this post was published at 1:39 p.m.
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