{"id":16870,"date":"2014-11-02T22:47:15","date_gmt":"2014-11-02T14:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spaceshiptwo-crash-inquiry-could-take-a-year\/"},"modified":"2014-11-02T22:47:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-02T14:47:15","slug":"spaceshiptwo-crash-inquiry-could-take-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spaceshiptwo-crash-inquiry-could-take-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceShipTwo crash inquiry could take a year"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Acting
Acting chairman of the NTSB Christopher Hart surveys the SpaceShipTwo crash site with Virgin Galactic pilot Todd Ericson. Credit: NTSB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Investigators have plenty of evidence to sift through as they look into the cause of Friday\u2019s fatal crash of a Virgin Galactic rocket plane, but the acting chair of the National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday the inquiry may take up to a year to complete.<\/p>\n

Federal investigators arrived at the crash site near Mojave, Calif., early Saturday and began documenting the debris field, which extends approximately 5 miles from northeast to southwest along the ground track of Friday\u2019s test flight.<\/p>\n

One of the space plane\u2019s pilots, 39-year-old Michael Alsbury, died in the crash. Pilot Peter Siebold, 43, was hospitalized with serious injuries.<\/p>\n

Both pilots were employees of Scaled Composites, builder of the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane Virgin Galactic planned to use for brief up-and-down suborbital spaceflights with paying passengers.<\/p>\n

Scaled was founded by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan and is now a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp.<\/p>\n

The pattern of debris indicates SpaceShipTwo broke up in flight, according to Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the NTSB.<\/p>\n

Photos from observers on the ground also show the craft splintering apart in mid-air shortly after firing a hybrid rocket motor following release from a huge twin-fuselage mothership 50,000 feet above the California desert.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to find where the pieces are in order to determine when and how the the breakup occurred,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n

Fragments of the 60-foot-long rocket plane located so far include the ship\u2019s two tail booms at the northeast end of the debris field, the main fuselage and propellant tanks, cockpit area, and rocket motor farthest southwest.<\/p>\n

Hart said NTSB experts would work backward in their investigation, using clues from the debris and from other sources to determine what happened to SpaceShipTwo.<\/p>\n

\"NTSB
NTSB investigators visit SpaceShipTwo\u2019s carrier airplane \u2014 the WhiteKnightTwo \u2014 inside a Virgin Galactic hangar. Credit: NTSB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen the debris field spans that large an area, then we know there was in-flight separation, and then, of course, the question then is why did that happen? That is what we are exploring. That\u2019s what our investigators are examining,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n

The experimental nature of Friday\u2019s flight \u2014 it was a test flight with a modified propulsion system \u2014 meant the spacecraft was fully instrumented and tracked with optical cameras and a radar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have extensive data to work from to help us investigate this accident,\u201d Hart said. \u201cBecause it was a test flight, it was heavily documented in ways that we don\u2019t usually see in normal accidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six cameras were mounted on the SpaceShipTwo vehicle, Hart said, along with three cameras on the craft\u2019s WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane, which was undamaged in the accident.<\/p>\n

A chase plane was recording video of the test flight, and a long-range tracking camera at nearby Edwards Air Force Base was following the rocket plane, Hart said.<\/p>\n

Telemetry from SpaceShipTwo recorded more than 1,000 parameters during Friday\u2019s flight, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween the disparate sites that complicate our task as investigators because we have to go to those sites, plus the extensive amount of data, that\u2019s why we have our work cut out for us,\u201d Hart said. \u201cI\u2019m not complaining. That\u2019s actually a good thing that we have that much data because it\u2019s going to help us to do what we\u2019re here to do, which is to find out what went wrong and figure out what to do and make recommendations to prevent it from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n