Category Archives: Business

Business, Space

The NTSB Briefing

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It’s supposed to start at 9 AM PDT. Reportedly it will be live streamed by ABC-TV in Bakersfield.

[Post-briefing update]

OK, not much info. Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the NTSB said they’d just arrived, didn’t have any substantive info, would have another presser this afternoon after initial data gathering. Lead investigator will be a Lorenda Ward, with a team of 13-15 people. Didn’t know if vehicle had a black box, what altitude it occurred, but expects to get lots of telemetry/video because it was a test flight. That’s it until next presser. Follow @ntsb or go to ntsb.gov for schedule of future press conferences.

[Update at 09:32 PDT]

Channel 23 is still streaming from the Witt Center, Branson may be about to make a statement.

[Update a while later]

Leonard David has a transcript of Branson’s statement. As Miles O’Brien noted on Twitter, he seems to have lost some of his swagger.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Michael Belfiore: SpaceShipTwo and why space matters.

Business, Space, Technology and Society

WhiteKnightTwo

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Took off a few minutes ago in Mojave. Looks like a powered flight attempt, if the weather cooperates (there’s a front coming in, that’s supposed to bring us some much-needed Halloween rain this evening).

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s the story from Alan Boyle.

[Update at 10:26]

[Update a few minutes later]

Alan Stern just tweeted, after I asked if they had chutes, that they are (or were) on chute.

[Update a few minutes later]

Still no update, but as Charles Lurio just emailed, “Statement forthcoming” is always a bad sign.

[Update at 11 AM]

OK, some confusion about whether or not pilots bailed, but reports on police scanner of a downed aircraft, and Bakersfield reports sending Kern County fire equipment north of Mojave.

[Update at 11:23]

One pilot reported dead, news conference at 2 PM PDT. They’re covering it at NASASpaceflight.

[Update a few minutes later]

Doug Messier is back in Internet range, and reporting that he saw it light, then stop, then relight, then got lost in clouds. Saw it blow up in the air, came down in pieces. Went to crash site with debris field, saw a body in a seat.

[Update, just before press conference in Mojave]

Streaming at NBC.

Business, Space, Technology and Society

Failure Is Always An Option

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SciAm has a list of all the recent launch failures.

Note that for the past three and a half years, every single one (including last night’s) was built in Russia or the Ukraine. And the last two American ones (not counting last night’s) were both Orbital (separation problem on Taurus). Prior to that, the last American one was the Falcon 1 test program, which should really count, since it was in fact a test program. Orbital has no experience with liquid propulsion, which is why they outsourced it to Ukraine. That appears to have been a mistake.

[Update a while later]

Orbital’s stock is down 17% this morning.

[Update a while later, just before Atlas V launch]

Eric Berger’s thoughts on the implications. I agree that it’s not that big a deal, but I hope it accelerates and end to our reliance on Russian hardware.