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SpaceShipTwo explodes and crashes

#1
Yazata Offline
It appears that Virgin Galactic's space tourism spaceplane exploded right after its rocket engine was lit during a powered test-flight.

The rocket plane was at about 50,000 feet when it blew up, not long after it was released from its carrier/launcher plane (which wasn't damaged and returned safely). Debris was scattered over a large area. From the looks of the debris, the thing came apart at altitude, losing some of its control surfaces. Witnesses report it tumbling.

Two test pilots were aboard. Reports are one was killed, the other seriously injured and helicoptered to a hospital. Some (not all) witnesses report seeing a parachute, so maybe the injured pilot was able to bail at some point.

My guess is that the whole Virgin Galactic space tourism project might be a fatality as well.  At best it's going to be delayed for years.
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#2
Yazata Offline
CNN just showed part of a press conference in Mojave California.

The big news is that this flight was the first using a new fuel formulation. But Scaled Composites (the vehicle's manufacturer who were conducting the test) emphasized that everything had been tested in a whole series of rocket engine test burns on the ground before it was put in the plane. (I believe that Scaled subcontracts the rocket engine to another company.) It isn't clear whether the new formulation had any relevance to what happened.

No news on the surviving pilot. He's 'doing as well as can be expected' was all they said.

CNN showed photos of a parachute on the ground, so it looks like the surviving pilot was able to get out that way. Somebody on CNN (not at the news conference) said that the pilots weren't wearing full pressure suits, so cabin depressurization and having to bail out at high altitude is likely to cause medical problems right there.

A photographer who was filming the flight from the ground said that he saw the rocket light up, then it seemed to go out, followed by a big puff of vapor, which he speculated might have been the rocket's liquid oxidizer. (The fuel itself is solid.) He didn't see any fireball.

This was kind of like the Challenger disaster in that what tipped off the ground that something was wrong wasn't so much what happened, but what didn't. They realized they had trouble when they lost communication with the pilots and when the rocket plane didn't begin its planned steep climb. So they alerted several helicopters that were on standby.
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#3
C C Offline
(Oct 31, 2014 09:43 PM)Yazata Wrote: My guess is that the whole Virgin Galactic space tourism project might be a fatality as well.  At best it's going to be delayed for years.

One thing is for sure, Richard Branson won't be taking himself and his family up in mid-2015, much less the already past-due date expected for this year. But now he must definitely risk their own lives eventually in order to restore confidence in the public for the project. From last year:

"...Branson, the British-born chairman of the Virgin Group, has been saying for years that he'd be on Virgin Galactic's first passenger spaceflight with his family. But now the reality is settling in — not just for the 63-year-old billionaire, but also for his two children: 31-year-old Holly and 28-year-old Sam. "I think any rational person would be slightly nervous, but it's going to be the most incredible experience ever," Sam said during the NBC interview. [...]SpaceShipTwo still has to go through months of flight tests, and the elder Branson said the craft would be proven safe before he gets on board at New Mexico's Spaceport America. "My wife would never forgive me if none of us came back, so we'll make absolutely sure it's well and truly tested," he said. [...] If the tests go well and the Federal Aviation Administration clears Virgin Galactic to take on passengers, the Bransons could get their suborbital space ride by mid-2014. However, Richard Branson said that time frame isn't set in stone: "It's rocket science, so it does take a little longer than one expects."
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/fir...8C11566225
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#4
Yazata Offline
The ill-fated SpaceShipTwo flight was a test flight and hence very well recorded and documented.

That's allowed the NTSB to quickly determine what downed the vehicle, though they still don't know exactly why the events occurred

It apparently had nothing to do with a rocket engine explosion, the new fuel formulation or anything the press has been speculating about.

Instead, it seems that the vehicle has a novel tail that rotates 90 degrees on re-entry, causing the vehicle to re-enter the atmosphere belly-first, helping slow it down. Reportedly the co-pilot unlocked and armed this tail feathering system seconds after launch. Then, for reasons that have yet to be determined, the system activated without any command from the pilots a few seconds after that. So the aerodynamics of the vehicle went all to hell, with the tail trying to put the plane into a belly-first attitude, while the rocket engine was still trying to drive it nose-first. That's when it became uncontrollable and started coming apart.

I'm not sure if it was the pilots that killed the rocket engine, or what. But apparently things calmed down enough that one of the pilots could bail out. How he was able to do that, given all the violent motions of the vehicle, and how he survived bailing out at nearly 50,000 feet, are still to be determined. Reports are that he's doing better in the hospital and is talking with doctors and his family. Hopefully he can tell investigators a lot more. The other pilot was found dead, still strapped into his acceleration couch, and it doesn't appear that he made any attempt to escape. So he might have been incapacitated early on, perhaps after being hit by something flying around.  

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/03/spa...stigation/
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#5
Yazata Offline
(Nov 4, 2014 01:22 AM)Yazata Wrote: I'm not sure if it was the pilots that killed the rocket engine, or what. But apparently things calmed down enough that one of the pilots could bail out. How he was able to do that, given all the violent motions of the vehicle, and how he survived bailing out at nearly 50,000 feet, are still to be determined. Reports are that he's doing better in the hospital and is talking with doctors and his family. Hopefully he can tell investigators a lot more. The other pilot was found dead, still strapped into his acceleration couch, and it doesn't appear that he made any attempt to escape. So he might have been incapacitated early on, perhaps after being hit by something flying around.

According to a story in this month's Air International, the surviving pilot says that it was the breakup of the disintegrating space-plane that ejected him, still buckled into his seat without a pressure suit, into the cold thin air at 50,000 feet while moving at slightly above Mach one. Somehow he became unstrapped from his seat, though he doesn't remember doing it. He seems to have lost consciousness at that point, waking up again at lower altitude when his emergency parachute deployed automatically as it was designed to do.

This has to be one of the most amazing tales of survival in the history of aviation.
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#6
C C Offline
(Feb 25, 2015 01:11 AM)Yazata Wrote: According to a story in this month's Air International, the surviving pilot says that it was the breakup of the disintegrating space-plane that ejected him, still buckled into his seat without a pressure suit, into the cold thin air at 50,000 feet while moving at slightly above Mach one. Somehow he became unstrapped from his seat, though he doesn't remember doing it. He seems to have lost consciousness at that point, waking up again at lower altitude when his emergency parachute deployed automatically as it was designed to do. This has to be one of the most amazing tales of survival in the history of aviation.

He deserves recognition for a perilous supersonic dive minus a suit. Even if it is far, far short of breaking Alan Eustace's and Felix Baumgartner's historic altitude records. No sane jumpers deliberately try such from 30,000 feet without a significant amount of preparation and special equipment. Much less devoid of any at all from 15 kilometers.
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#7
Yazata Offline
(Feb 25, 2015 09:04 AM)C C Wrote:
(Feb 25, 2015 01:11 AM)Yazata Wrote: According to a story in this month's Air International, the surviving pilot says that it was the breakup of the disintegrating space-plane that ejected him, still buckled into his seat without a pressure suit, into the cold thin air at 50,000 feet while moving at slightly above Mach one. Somehow he became unstrapped from his seat, though he doesn't remember doing it. He seems to have lost consciousness at that point, waking up again at lower altitude when his emergency parachute deployed automatically as it was designed to do. This has to be one of the most amazing tales of survival in the history of aviation.

He deserves recognition for a perilous supersonic dive minus a suit. Even if it is far, far short of breaking Alan Eustace's and Felix Baumgartner's historic altitude records. No sane jumpers deliberately try such from 30,000 feet without a significant amount of preparation and special equipment. Much less devoid of any at all from 15 kilometers.

The balloon jumpers were wearing space suits. They didn't survive the breakup and disintegration of a supersonic aircraft at high altitude, in nothing but their shirt-sleeves.

I agree that their super sky-dives were very cool though.
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#8
C C Offline
My bad, I didn't state that unambiguously enough: Although far below the altitude from which Eustace deliberately jumped (135,000 or so feet), it should still be an impressive accomplishment in that class of daredevilry because [unlike Eustace] the space-plane survivor did it without any suit / equipment and preparation. Even everyday skydivers at circa the upper limit for them (30,000 feet) would be insane to go without oxygen, suit, and proper planning. Much less the 15 kilometer height from which the surprised pilot dropped.

(Feb 25, 2015 06:21 PM)Yazata Wrote:
(Feb 25, 2015 09:04 AM)C C Wrote:
(Feb 25, 2015 01:11 AM)Yazata Wrote: According to a story in this month's Air International, the surviving pilot says that it was the breakup of the disintegrating space-plane that ejected him, still buckled into his seat without a pressure suit, into the cold thin air at 50,000 feet while moving at slightly above Mach one. Somehow he became unstrapped from his seat, though he doesn't remember doing it. He seems to have lost consciousness at that point, waking up again at lower altitude when his emergency parachute deployed automatically as it was designed to do. This has to be one of the most amazing tales of survival in the history of aviation.

He deserves recognition for a perilous supersonic dive minus a suit. Even if it is far, far short of breaking Alan Eustace's and Felix Baumgartner's historic altitude records. No sane jumpers deliberately try such from 30,000 feet without a significant amount of preparation and special equipment. Much less devoid of any at all from 15 kilometers.

The balloon jumpers were wearing space suits. They didn't survive the breakup and disintegration of a supersonic aircraft at high altitude, in nothing but their shirt-sleeves.

I agree that their super sky-dives were very cool though.
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