Key safety function of crashed Virgin spacecraft ‘deployed too early’
The investigation into last week’s deadly crash of the Virgin Galactic spaceship has found that the “feathering” function to help it descend into the atmosphere from space was deployed early, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Sunday.
The investigation into last week’s deadly crash of the Virgin Galactic spaceship has found that the “feathering” function to help it descend into the atmosphere from space was deployed early, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Sunday.
SpaceShipTwo’s rotating tail boom, a key safety feature for re-entering the atmosphere, inadvertently rotated early, said Christopher Hart, the acting chairman of the NTSB.
The federal agency 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.
Virgin Galactic is the fledgling space tourism company of billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson.
Hart told a news conference late on Sunday investigators had determined the “feathering” system should have been deployed when the vehicle was travelling about 1.4 times the speed of sound. Instead, the feather began rotating when the vehicle was traveling at Mach 1, he said.