FAA: Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Grounded Until Investigation Completed
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said today that Virgin Galactic cannot launch its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle until the agency completes an investigation into an anomaly that occurred on a flight test that carried company founder Richard Branson on July 11.
“The FAA is responsible for protecting the public during commercial space transportation launch and reentry operations. The FAA is overseeing the Virgin Galactic investigation of its July 11 SpaceShipTwo mishap that occurred over Spaceport America, New Mexico. SpaceShipTwo deviated from its Air Traffic Control clearance as it returned to Spaceport America,” the agency said in a statement. “Virgin Galactic may not return the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to flight until the FAA approves the final mishap investigation report or determines the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety.”
A story in The New Yorker on Wednesday said SpaceShipTwo deviated from its planned trajectory during a flight that carried Branson and three Virgin Galactic employees on a suborbital spaceflight. The story said the anomaly was serious, although Virgin Galactic has downplayed the incident in a statement and disputed some of the characterizations made in the story.
The news was followed on Thursday by an announcement from Virgin Galactic of a planned suborbital research flight scheduled for late September or early October. That announcement was followed by the FAA statement about the ship being grounded until the the investigation is completed.
The FAA statement prompted another statement by Virgin Galactic that reiterated points made in its earlier statement.
“As we have previously stated, we are working in partnership with the FAA to address the short time that the spaceship dropped below its permitted altitude during the Unity 22 flight. We take this seriously and are currently addressing the causes of the issue and determining how to prevent this from occurring on future missions. Although the flight’s ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, it was a controlled and intentional flight path that allowed Unity 22 to successfully reach space and land safely at our Spaceport in New Mexico. At no time were passengers and crew put in any danger as a result of this change in trajectory, and at no time did the ship travel above any population centers or cause a hazard to the public. FAA representatives were present in our control room during the flight and in post-flight debriefs.
“We have been working closely with the FAA to support a thorough review and timely resolution of this issue.”
The ongoing investigation does not preclude Virgin Galactic proceeding with its planned research flight as scheduled if the investigation is wrapped up and any required corrective actions (if any) are taken in time. The FAA did not provide a timeline for completing its work.
7 responses to “FAA: Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Grounded Until Investigation Completed”
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Well is it just upper winds blowing it a little off course or a serious anomaly?
Two pretty different takes going on here.
It could be the blowing off course plus the FAA being painfully slow to complete its review.
Or it could be a serious anomaly. Well, certainly interesting. Always drama with Virgin Galactic
AIUI the warning light procedure was to cut the engine and abort, which the crew didn’t do.
Former VG pilot Mark “Forger” Stucky.
https://twitter.com/Stuck4g…
I wonder how much the pitch can deviate from ideal, and I’m also wondering how consistent the thrust levels are (we’ve read over the years about these hybrid motors spitting out chunks of unburned propellant and basically having problems scaling up).
There might be practical control issues going on what with the extensive time at very high pitch up attitude (so, more challenging to maintain orientation) and extreme shaking going on (such as was the case with Michael Alsbury’s fatal flight). It’s not the sleekest looking ship, so in a way, it’s easy to forget that they’re flying a freakin’ rocket. Perhaps that they’re a little bit off trajectory while trying to fly a bucking bronco up to space is understandable.
But the FAA needs to understand where it will be, when and at what airspeed.
Maybe. Or maybe it was something else entirely — we still don’t know the details. I’m just speculating out loud here as it’s an interesting situation, for sure
to coin a phrase, it seems as though its a J3 trying to fly in a B777 world 🙂 fly safe
I guess the thing for the FAA is, flying outside the designated airspace is a serious anomaly. The FAA, at least the part concerned with the National Airspace System and Air Traffic Control, is all about designated airspace and aircraft staying in their assigned areas. A vehicle effectively going rogue at altitudes between 18,000’ and 60,000’ is a big issue for them.
So, on second thought, I can see the FAA wanting to take the time to understand what went wrong, why, how much airspace should be designated per flight and how to integrate such flights into the existing National Airspace System without disrupting commerce (by regularly closing off too much airspace so as to impede commercial aviation) or endangering the public (by not reserving sufficient airspace and then having a high speed rocketplane zipping through busy airways).
Basically, if you’re going fast enough, even a small temporary course deviation eats up lots of airspace/ground track. In this case, add pitch and engine performance to the mix, at least on the way up
I dont want to speak for the FAA, but as an FAA DPE, a test pilot and a current pilot in the national airspace system (and in self disclosure a person on brink of going back to work with a major aerospace company as a test pilot)…the FAA will take this very seriously
there are two issues here
the first is not disputable. the vehicle violated its flight operations boundaries. I am told this has been confirmed not only by on board guidance but by FAA and DoD secondary target tracking and reciept of on board ADSB data
the vehicle did this in spite of the pilots getting adequate warning of the violation and in fact making some decisions to continue flight in spite of doing it
the pilots will need an explanation for that…and I’ve never seen a good one
the second issue will be why this occurred. that seems to be in some dispute. if it was incorrect (or asa the phrase goes “undesired aircraft state”) due to pilot error…well that is going to bring up a third event…if it was high crosswinds, the issue will be why the vehicle could not correct for those
this last part might be the tricky one for continued flight of the vehicle. if the guidance system is not resilient enough to deal with cross wind errors or to detect pilot error in trim…well those issues will need some discussion.
but if I were the two pilots I would be finding a lawyer now. this is a rather serious violation.
Guess they will have the time now to fix the White Knight 2…