MOJAVE,
California (AP) -- An explosion at a Mojave Desert airport during testing of a
propellant system for a new space tourism vehicle left three workers dead, and
has shaken a small community that prides itself as the hometown of the first
private space launch.
The blast
Thursday at a remote test facility belonging to Scaled Composites LLC also
critically injured three others.
The
company, headed by maverick aerospace designer Burt Rutan, made history in 2004
when its SpaceShipOne became the first private manned rocket to reach space.
Since that milestone, Rutan has partnered with British billionaire Richard
Branson to build a fleet of commercial vehicles dubbed SpaceShipTwo for Virgin
Galactic.
The
accident occurred during a test of the flow of nitrous oxide through an
injector in the course of testing components for a new rocket motor for the
SpaceShipTwo. The chemical was at room temperature and under pressure, Rutan
said.
Stuart
Witt, the airport's general manager who was in his office when the explosion
happened, said the airport is home to several commercial space startups and is
constantly buzzing with rocket and engine testing.
"What
we do is inherently risky," Witt said. "These are not the days we
look forward to, but we deal with it."
The airport
is an important part of the unincorporated community of about 4,000 people,
said Bill Deaver, publisher of weekly Mojave Desert News. It employs about
1,500 people, he said, and is the country's first inland spaceport certified by
the Federal Aviation Administration.
A Kern County Medical Center official said two people died at the scene and one later died
at the hospital after surgery. The three injured suffered numerous shrapnel
wounds. Two were in critical condition and one was in serious condition early
Friday, the official said.
Virgin
Galactic president Will Whitehorn said the company expressed its sympathies to
the families and declined further comment until Scaled completes its
investigation.
Rutan, who
arrived at Mojave after the accident, is tightlipped about his projects and
gave little information about the test. But he said it had been done safely
many times during the SpaceShipOne program and had been done once before for
the SpaceShipTwo program.
Authorities
closed off access to the blast site in a remote unpaved area about a
quarter-mile (half-kilometer) beyond an airplane storage area. Video news
helicopters showed wrecked equipment and vehicles at the airport in the high
desert north of Los Angeles near Edwards Air Force Base.
Rutan had
been secretly developing SpaceShipTwo in a hangar closed to the public. He had
not publicly released a schedule for completion of the design, testing and
first launch. Rutan said the accident would not change that.
Branson has
invested at least US$200 million (euro146 million) for a fleet of Rutan's
spaceships to send paying tourists some 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth
for US$200,000 (euro145,751) to experience the view from space and five minutes
of weightlessness. Earlier this year, Branson told a trade show the new ship
would be ready within a year and, after a year of flight tests, would have its
first commercial launch in 2009.
Aerospace
and defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. owns 40 percent of Scaled and
recently agreed to acquire the rest of it. The deal is awaiting regulatory
approval and should close next month.
Northrop
Grumman spokesman Dan McClain said the company had no comment on the explosion.
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