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Spaceship Builder to Appeal Calif. Fines
By Brian Berger
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 08 February 2008
11:39 am ET
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WASHINGTON —
Scaled Composites LLC is appealing $28,870 in fines the California Department
of Industrial Relations imposed on the Mojave, Calif.-based spaceship builder
in connection with a July test-stand explosion that killed three workers.
Seventeen
Scaled Composite employees and contractors were present when the explosion
occurred three seconds into a cold-flow test of a hybrid rocket motor the
company is developing for Virgin
Galactic's SpaceShipTwo suborbital passenger craft.
A report
released Thursday by California workplace safety officials said all seven of
the Scaled Composites employees injured or killed in the July 26 incident
were viewing the day's nitrous oxide cold-flow test from behind a chain-link
fence. Two were killed instantly by the blast. One died on his way to the
hospital.
The six
workers who were running the test were not injured in the blast. They were
sheltered in a mobile command center protected by an earthen berm.
California safety officials faulted Scaled for
failing
to adequately train workers about the potential hazards of nitrous oxide.
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