Virgin Galactic aims to begin testing another spaceship this year

Virgin Galactic, the space venture of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, hopes to start testing a new spaceship before the end of the year, the company's chief executive has said in one of his few public comments since a fatal crash last year.

George Whitesides said the spacecraft would be better because of the lessons learnt from the crash, which occurred when a test pilot unlocked a mechanism meant to slow a descending craft while it was climbing.

However, Mr Whitesides, speaking at the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, gave no details about the findings of an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. The crash, on October 31, killed Michael Alsbury, the flight's co-pilot, and seriously injured Peter Siebold, the pilot.

Mr Whitesides' comments echo those by Sir Richard since the crash. He has vowed that the company will press ahead with its efforts to carry paying passengers into space on board its craft, which is lifted into the upper atmosphere by a conventional aircraft then released and allowed to power up towards the edge of space.

"The first message that I wanted to communicate is that we are moving forward well," Mr Whitesides told the audience at the symposium. "The team is doing great and has turned a corner - that is the second spaceship."

Virgin Galactic had been through an experience that many in the space industry had suffered, Mr Whitesides said. "I think, ultimately, we will have a better spaceship for it."

The company aimed to start testing the craft before the end of the year.

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

The future of Virgin's suborbital space flight programme is likely to depend on the findings of the NTSB, which has said little about the crash since its preliminary report, issued days afterwards. The investigation has access to a large quantity of data after equipment on board beamed it back to the ground. The NTSB issues its final reports within a year of incidents it investigates.

However, it remains unclear what the NTSB will recommend about the central issue of why a single error - the pulling of a lever to unlock the "feathering" mechanism - was able to cause a crash. Spacecraft safety systems normally require craft to be resistant to at least two separate human or mechanical failures.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation