Investigation into fatal Virgin Galactic spaceship crash reveals “feathering” system activated prematurely

VIRGIN Galactic’s experimental spaceship broke apart mid-flight after a device to slow the craft’s descent prematurely deployed, investigators believe.

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US investigators say Virgin Galactic’s experimental spaceship broke apart in flight over California’s Mojave Desert after a device to slow the craft’s descent prematurely deployed.

National Transportation Safety Board acting chairman Christopher Hart said that while no cause for Friday’s crash has been determined, investigators found the “feathering” system was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed.

The system requires a two-step process to deploy.

The co-pilot unlocked the system but Hart said the second step occurred “without being commanded”.

Hart said the SpaceShipTwo’s fuel tanks and engines showed no signs of being compromised.

Mr Hart said debris from the rocket crash was strewn over an area eight kilometres long, indicating a likely in-flight breakup, and would be part of an investigation lasting up to 12 months.

Crash site ... a National Transportation Safety Board team surveys a tail section from the crashed Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo near Cantil, California. Picture: AFP

The news comes as rocket science safety expert Carolynne Campbell said Virgin Galactic “ignored” safety warnings in the years leading up to the deadly crash.

She said she could not speculate on the cause, but noted that multiple warnings have been issued to Virgin since 2007, when three engineers died testing a rocket on the ground.

“Based on the work we’ve done, including me writing a paper on the handling of nitrous oxide, we were concerned about what was going on at Virgin Galactic,” Ms Campbell, with the Netherlands-based International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, said.

“I sent copies of the paper to various people at Virgin Galactic in 2009, and they were ignored,” “I warned them ... that the rocket motor was potentially dangerous.”

The doomed flight left 39-year-old pilot Michael Alsbury — a father of two — dead and copilot Pete Siebold seriously injured.

Plane designer and builder Scaled Composites said in a statement that Mr Siebold is now “alert and talking with his family and doctors.”

Scaled Composites director of flight operations Peter Siebold, 39, was injured in the crash. Picture: AP Photo/Scaled Composites

Co-pilot Michael Alsbury died in the crash. Picture: AP Photo/Scaled Composites

Meanwhile, British tycoon and Virgin chief Richard Branson insisted that he was undeterred and that his dream of commercial space travel was still alive.

“We owe it to our test pilots to find out exactly what went wrong, and once we’ve found out what went wrong, if we can overcome it, we’ll make absolutely certain that the dream lives on,” a grim-faced Mr Branson said.

“We do understand the risks involved, and we’re not going to push on blindly. Safety has always been our number one priority,” he added before heading off to rally grieving Virgin Galactic staff at the Mohave Air and Space Port.

The Virgin flight — the 35th by SpaceShipTwo, which is meant to carry tourists on short but expensive trips to space — marked the first time the spaceship had flown on a new kind of plastic-based rocket fuel mixture.

Tragic ... Billionaire Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson speaks to the press, vowing to find out what caused the crash of his space tourism rocket. Picture: AP

Media scrutiny ... Richard Branson told reporters his dream of commercial space travel remained alive but said his company would not “press on blindly”. Picture: AFP

A team of US federal investigators have launched a probe of the causes of Friday’s accident, which dealt a devastating setback to commercial space tourism.

Although piecing together the facts and analysis surrounding the accident would be lengthy, Mr Hart said the on-site investigation would last four to seven days.

Mr Hart earlier told reporters that investigators were entering unknown territory since it was “the first time we have been in the lead of a space launch that involved persons on board”.

Investigation ... agents from the NTSB and the FBI survey the debris from SpaceShipTwo in a desert field near to the crash site in Mohave, California. Picture: Getty

However, he sounded a positive note late on Saturday adding that as a test flight, the spaceship “was heavily documented in ways we don’t usually see with normal accidents”.

That included six cameras on the vehicle and three on WhiteKnightTwo — the bigger aircraft that had carried the spaceship.

There was also extensive telemetry data and a long-range camera at nearby Edwards Air Force Base, among other sources of input, he said.

Evidence ... the investigation into what caused the horrific crash could take a year, authorities said after examining the crash site. Picture: AFP

SpaceShipTwo hurtled to the ground and crashed shortly after it had detached from a mothership at an altitude of around 13,700 metres during a test flight.

Experts say the accident will delay the advent of commercial space tourism by several years.

Virgin Galactic had hoped to start ferrying wealthy customers to the edge of space in 2015, charging $US250,000 ($270,490) per person for a ticket on the company’s six-seater vehicle.

Around 500 people, including a slew of celebrities such as Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio, have already reserved tickets on the first wave of Virgin Galactic flights, according to reports.

Mr Branson said anyone who wanted to cancel their reservation would get their money back.

The crash was the second disaster to rock the private space industry in the space of a few days, after an Antares rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station exploded after takeoff in Virginia on Tuesday.