NTSB Probe Reveals That SpaceShipTwo’s Feathering Mechanism Was Unlocked Prematurely

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A feature designed to slow down Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo for re-entry was deployed prematurely, potentially playing a role in the Friday crash that killed one of the vehicle’s pilots, investigators revealed on Sunday.
According to Laura Mandaro of USA Today, National Transportation Safety Board’s Acting Chairman Christopher Hart revealed during a media briefing that one of the pilots unlocked a lever designed to move the aircraft into its unique “feathered” position too soon, causing it to be detached from its mothership ahead of schedule.
Hart said that, based on a preliminary review of the telemetry and optical data from the test flight, it was concluded that the “feather” parameters on the craft switched from locked to unlocked approximately nine seconds into the flight. The slow-down process requires a two-step process, he noted, and while the lever was manually unlocked, Mandaro reported that the craft moved into a feathering position on its own roughly 11 seconds into the voyage.
Despite the discovery, however, Hart said that it was too soon to confirm any possible cause of the crash, according to BBC News. Despite media speculation that the fuel tanks or engines might have been at fault, Hart said that both were found intact and that neither showed any signs that they were breached. The NTSB noted that nearly all of SpaceShipTwo’s parts have been recovered, the British news agency said, but they also cautioned that the probe into the incident was still far from over.
“Investigators have warned it could take up to a year for the full report into the crash to be completed,” Guardian reporters Juliette Garside, Ed Pilkington and Mark Tran wrote on Monday. They added that the NTSB was looking at pilot error and mechanical failure as possible causes, and that the debris suggested the craft broke apart while in flight.
SpaceShipTwo experienced a “serious anomaly” during a test flight on Friday before crashing into California’s Mojave Desert. The crash killed one pilot, 39-year-old Michael Alsbury, and injured the other, 43-year-old Peter Siebold, both of whom were employed by Virgin Galactic partner Scaled Composites.
BBC News said that Alsbury, who was the co-pilot on Friday’s mission, was a pilot with 15 years of experience who had first flown SpaceShipTwo in 2010. On Saturday, Scaled Composites said that Siebold, the company’s Director of Flight Operations, was “alert and talking with his family and doctors.”
In a statement released Sunday on its website, Virgin Galactic said, “Over the past few days, there has been speculation about the tragic incident the resulted in the death of Scaled Composites’ pilot, Michael Alsbury, injuries to pilot Peter Siebold and the loss of SpaceShipTwo.”
“We understand that everyone is anxious to understand what happened on Friday; certainly no one wants to know more than we do,” the company added. “[But] now is not the time for speculation. Now is the time to focus on all those affected by this tragic accident… to get to the bottom of what happened on that tragic day, and to learn from it so that we can move forward safely with this important mission.”
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