SpaceShipTwo design to be released today

Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites will be formally unveiling the design of SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft, White Knight Two, at an event in New York today. Interesting, there hasn’t been much buzz leading up to this event: a preview in the UK newspaper The Telegraph yesterday is one of the few advance stories about […]

Scaled fined for July accident

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (aka Cal/OSHA) has fined Scaled Composites for safety violations identified in the aftermath of the July accident that killed three employees at Mojave Airport. Cal/OSHA fined Scaled $25,780 for failing to properly train its employees about the dangers of nitrous oxide, the chemical that is used as […]

2008: “Year of the Spaceship”

That’s the designation that Virgin Galactic is giving to the coming year, according to a Flight International article that reports on a speech given by Will Whitehorn on Thursday at a space conference in the UK. Virgin anticipates a busy year, highlighted by the first test flight of the White Knight 2 carrier aircraft in […]

What SpaceShipTwo might look like

The public right now has only a right idea of what SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft, White Knight Two, will look like, based primarily on the promotional animations and images released by Virgin Galactic. Flightglobal.com took the interesting step of using those images and modifying them based on comments on the design made by Burt […]

More on Rutan’s speech in Alabama

I negelected yesterday to post a link to my article in The Space Review about Burt Rutan’s speech in Alabama and subsequent interview. The article speaks largely for itself: Rutan remains committed to the development of SpaceShipTwo, although the timeline, and even some of the technical details of the propulsion system, are uncertain at this […]

Rutan: no explanation yet for explosion

I was able to make it down to Alabama this weekend to attend the symposium where Burt Rutan spoke this morning. His prepared remarks did not directly address recent events (either the accident last month or the acquisition of Scaled Composites by Northrop Grumman, which closed yesterday). However, I was able to talk with him […]

Space dust? More like spaced out

It shouldn’t be surprising that an event like last week’s explosion in Mojave has resulted in its share of both good and bad reporting. However, an article in ArabianBusiness.com is a particularly egregious example of poor reporting on this topic. The article argues that Richard Branson’s “entire commercial space tourism dream is in tatters” because […]

Scaled family support fund

Courtesy of the NSS is the following information about a fund to support the families of those killed and injured in the Thursday explosion in Mojave:

Scaled has announced information on a fund for those who wish to support the families of the deceased as well as the injured and their families.

The […]

PSF updates its Mojave statement

The Personal Spaceflight Federation issued Saturday an updated statement on Thursday’s accident in Mojave. The statement builds upon the brief statement issued by the organization and includes these key bullet points:

We will always be open and honest to the public and our customers about the risks of our activities and about any incidents that […]

Reaction to the Mojave accident

A recap of responses to Thursday’s explosion in Mojave:

The Personal Spaceflight Federation released a brief statement about the accident: “Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families and those injured or lost in today’s incident. We will await the results of the investigation before further comment, but we have complete confidence that the […]