An explosion at the Mojave spaceport facility has killed three and sent three others to the hospital with serious injuries. The accident at the facilities of Scaled Composites LLC, Burt Rutan's space company, occurred during testing of propulsion system components.
The blast Thursday at a remote test facility belonging to Scaled Composites LLC critically injured three other employees working on a propellant system for the vehicle.
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."
It is, of course, to early to say what this will do to the private space sector or SpaceShipTwo. The system being tested had been tested previously without incident. Scaled Composites is not releasing any further information about the accident while they investigate the cause.
