There is concerning news about the last Virgin Galactic test flight of Spaceship Two. It came very close to ending in disaster, something which wasn't discovered until the vehicle was inspected after landing.
But when the ground crew wheeled the suborbital spacecraft back into the hangar, company officials discovered that a seal running along a stabilizer on the wing designed to keep the space plane flying straight had come undone — a potentially serious safety hazard.
“The structural integrity of the entire stabilizer was compromised,” Todd Ericson, a test pilot who also served as a vice president for safety and test, said, according to a soon-to-be-published book. “I don’t know how we didn’t lose the vehicle and kill three people.”
If you have a Washington Post subscription, you can read the original story that the article that I linked to was based on.
I am surprised that I haven't heard more about this.
No comments:
Post a Comment