Virgin Galactic's latest plane/rocket, "SpaceShipTwo", crashed after takeoff this morning above the Mojave Air space. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is an eight-person plane/spaceship combination. It took off from a runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port just after 9AM PT, slung beneath its plane component ("WhiteKnightTwo"). It reached 50,000 feet and the rocket component (SpaceShipTwo) was freed for solo flight. Virgin Galactic reported an "anomaly" with the ship soon after, via Twitter.The crash of the vehicle, undergoing its first powered test flight since January over the Mojave Desert, 150 kilometres north of Los Angeles, came days after another private space company, Orbital Sciences Corp, lost a rocket in an explosion moments after liftoff in Virginia.
