Virgin crash sets space tourism back by years – update – no explosion

SpaceShip 2 has an engine explosion soon after being dropped from the White Knight 2 launch vehicle.
Credit: AP/BBC

Update: US National Transport Safety Board investigation has revealed the accident was caused by premature deployment of the re-entry system.

Virgin’s launch system has a “re-useable first stage” in the form of the jet-powered aircraft, White Knight 2. At 40,000 feet, SpaceShip 2, the second stage, is dropped, the pilot starts the rocket engine, & the craft continues to around 350,000 feet.

Virgin rocket motors are of a relatively new type, using rubber as fuel, with nitrous oxide as the oxidising agent. Porous rubber allows the oxidiser to diffuse through. Throttle control is obtained by varying the flow of nitrous oxide.

Rocket motors by their very nature, release huge amounts of energy in a very short period of time. By this means, they achieve amazing outcomes, such as lifting SpaceShip 2 to 350,000 feet. Sometimes the mechanisms creating, containing & directing this energy, fail. Result: an accident such as has just occurred.


Spaceship 2 wreckage
Credit: KABC News in Los Angeles/Phys Org

And space tourism? Virgin had plans to carry it's first paying passengers into space in 2015. That schedule will have to be revised.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29857182

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