An ongoing
investigation into a fatal explosion last summer has delayed rocket engine
development for the passenger spacecraft SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle's lead
designer has said.
Aerospace
pioneer Burt Rutan, who is building the suborbital
SpaceShipTwo with his Mojave, Calif.-based company Scaled Composites, said
the firm must first determine the cause of
the July 26 blast that killed three Scaled workers and injured three others
before completing the spacecraft's rocket engine.
"No
question, we are having delays in development of the rocket engine," Rutan said
after unveiling designs for SpaceShipTwo and its
WhiteKnightTwo mothership in New York City on Jan. 23. "We just don't know how
long those delays will be yet."
Scaled
engineers are building a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo vehicles and two
WhiteKnightTwo carriers for the space tourism firm Virgin Galactic founded by British
entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson. Virgin Galactic is selling $200,000
tickets for rides aboard the air-launched SpaceShipTwo vehicles, each of which
is designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to the edge of space and
back.
Rutan said
his firm is committed to isolating the source of the explosion, which occurred
at the Mojave Air and Space Port during a cold flow test of the nitrous-based
oxidizer to be used in SpaceShipTwo's rocket engine.
The test,
Rutan said, is one that had been performed several times for SpaceShipTwo and
its predecessor SpaceShipOne, which won the
$10 million Ansari X Prize for suborbital flight in 2004, and was thought
to be safe. SpaceShipOne used a rocket motor powered by liquid nitrous oxide
and a proprietary mixture of rubber-like propellant to launch itself and a
pilot into suborbital space.
"We were
within a couple of weeks of doing our first hot firing and really learning a
lot about this brand new motor that's being developed," Rutan said of the
timing of the explosion.
Virgin
Galactic CEO Will Whitehorn said last week that the first SpaceShipTwo,
currently under construction, remains on track for a planned rollout later this
summer. The spacecraft is slated to undergo an initial round of test flights by
next year, pending the resolution of its rocket engine work, he added.
"We're not
in the business of making predictions," said Whitehorn, adding that
SpaceShipTwo and its carrier craft must also pass a series of other tests before their
first flights. "We're going to have a comprehensive program."
Earlier
this month, California state occupational safety inspectors issued
citations to Scaled and fined the firm $25,870 in connection with the July
explosion. Rutan said his firm is working with state officials, as well as
aerospace industry experts, to isolate the exact cause of the explosion to
enhance future safety at Scaled and beyond.
"I can tell
you for certain that, when we do determine the cause, that it will be published
so that it can't happen to others," Rutan said. "But we don't know yet what
caused the detonation."
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