News Digest

Branson to persevere with space bid as investigation into crash begins

Sir Richard Branson said he will persevere with his space tourism venture despite the death of a pilot in a test flight crash in California. Describing the tragedy, in which another pilot was seriously injured, as “a devastating loss”, the billionaire businessman said he and his team at Virgin Galactic were doing everything possible to support the pilots’ families. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket came down in the Mojave Desert in California, having “suffered a serious anomaly” after a test flight conducted by partner business Scaled Composites. Sir Richard is expected to arrive in Mojave today.

Mojave is also where I want to be – with the dedicated and hard-working people who are now in shock at this devastating loss.

Sir Richard Branson

SpaceShipTwo has been under development at Mojave Air and Spaceport. It was designed to be carried into the air by the WhiteKnightTwo jet and released before igniting its rocket to travel into space, and then returning to Earth as a glider. A problem was discovered two minutes after the flight took off, and teams were sent to the crash site 40 kilometres north of the local airport. Branson said he and his team will co-operate fully with authorities in their investigation into the crash.