Co-pilot killed in Virgin Galactic spaceship crash

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two (SS2), the world's first commercial spaceship owned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investments PJC, is shown completing its first rocket-powered flight in this April 29, 2013 file photo. [Photo/Agencies]

Cost of a ride on the ship now goes for $250,000 and among those who have signed up are celebrities including singer Lady Gaga and actors Angelina Jolie and Ashton Kutcher.

According to plans, the spaceship then fires its rocket motor to catapult it to about 62 miles (100 km) above Earth, giving passengers a view of the planet set against the blackness of space and a few minutes of weightlessness.

The vehicle is based on a prototype, SpaceShipOne, which 10 years ago won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for becoming the first privately developed manned spacecraft to fly in space.

"During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo," Virgin said in a statement just after the crash.

Witt said the first sign of a malfunction came 90 seconds to two minutes after the carrier jet released the spacecraft, which occurred at 10:10 a.m. local time.

"There's usually a certain cadence, and you see things occurring, and the thing makes a contrail and the like. Because of the very light cirrus clouds, I was eyes on, but I didn't see any anomaly. In fact it was when I wasn't hearing anything that I became concerned. And I looked over at my colleague, and then there was a radio call, something about a chute."

The crash was the second accident this week involving a commercial U.S. space company. On Tuesday, an Antares rocket built and launched by Orbital Sciences exploded after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.

Friday's crash marked a major setback for Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of billionaire Branson's London-based Virgin Group. The company was aiming to make the world's first commercial suborbital space flights with SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot spacecraft.

The launch, which was controlled from the Mojave Air and Space Port, was to have been the first in a series of test flights leading up to Virgin Galactic's maiden flight beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Virgin ultimately was planning to add four more suborbital spacecraft to its fleet, along with a second White Knight carrier jet. Plans call for the fleet to fly out of a new space port in Las Cruces, New Mexico, once the company completes all test flights and is certified for passenger service to begin.

Virgin Galactic's Whitesides told a Toronto space conference earlier this month that a second spacecraft was already under construction and about 60 percent complete.

Other companies developing passenger suborbital spacecraft include privately owned XCOR Aerospace, which is building a two-person space plane called Lynx, and Blue Origin, a startup space company owned by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos.