Slowdown deployed early on 
Virgin 
spaceship

National Transportation Safety Board acting chairman Christopher Hart said while no cause for Friday’s crash of SpaceShipTwo has been determined, investigators found the “feathering” system – which lifts and rotates the tail to create drag – was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed.

The system requires a two-step process to deploy. The co-pilot unlocked the system but Mr Hart said the second step occurred “without being commanded”.

He said the investigation is months from being completed, and pilot error and mechanical failure are among many things being looked at.

Co-pilot Michael Alsbury, 39, was killed. Peter Siebold, 43, who piloted the mission, parachuted to the ground and is receiving treatment at a hospital for serious injuries.

The feathering is a feature unique to the craft to help it slow as it re-enters the atmosphere. After being unlocked, a lever rotates booms at the rear of the plane up to 90 degrees so they act as a rudder. After decelerating, the booms return to their normal position and the craft glides to Earth.

Mr Hart said the feathers activated at Mach 1.0, the speed of sound, but should not have deployed until it had at least reached a speed of Mach 1.4, or more than 1,000 mph.

Virgin Galactic – owned by billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi – plans to fly passengers to altitudes more than 62 miles above Earth. The company sells seats on each prospective journey for 250,000 US dollars (£156,000).

Sir Richard had hoped to begin flights next year but said on Saturday that the project will not resume until the cause of the accident is determined and the problems fixed.

The crash almost certainly dashed founder Sir Richard’s goal of starting commercial suborbital flight next spring, but the mogul said that while he remained committed to civilian space travel “we are not going to push on blindly”.

“We are determined to find out what went wrong,” he said on Saturday, asserting that safety had always been the top priority of the program that envisions taking wealthy tourists six at a time to the edge of space for a brief experience of weightlessness and a view of Earth below.

“Yesterday, we fell short,” he said. “We’ll now comprehensively assess the results of the crash and are determined to learn from this and move forward.”

He also criticised early speculation about crash causes.

More than a dozen investigators in a range of specialisms were forming teams to examine the crash site, collect data and 
interview witnesses, Mr Hart said.

“This will be the first time we have been in the lead of a space launch (accident) that involved persons onboard,” he said.