This report discusses the October 31, 2014, crash involving the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) reusable suborbital rocket, N339SS, which was operated by Scaled Composites LLC. SS2 broke up into multiple pieces during a rocket-powered test flight and impacted terrain over a 5-mile area near Koehn Dry Lake, California.
The pilot received serious injuries, and the copilot received fatal injuries. SS2 was destroyed, and no one on the ground was injured as a result of the falling debris. SS2 had been released from its launch vehicle, WhiteKnightTwo, N348MS, about 13 seconds before the structural breakup. Scaled was operating SS2 under an experimental permit issued by the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) according to the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 437.
Safety issues include the lack of human factors guidance for commercial space operators, the efficacy and timing of the preapplication consultation process, limited interactions between the FAA/AST and applicants during the experimental permit evaluation process, missed opportunities during the FAA/AST’s evaluations of hazard analyses and waivers from regulatory requirements, limited inspector familiarity with commercial space operators, an incomplete commercial space flight database for mishap lessons learned, and the need for improved emergency response planning.
Safety recommendations are addressed to the FAA and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.
This post was published on November 15, 2020 6:33 pm
The Black Vault has uncovered information about the Air Force’s Marauder system through a recent…
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the FBI's Carnivore system drew considerable attention and…
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has unveiled its latest X-plane, the XRQ-73, under…
The following list of documents pertain to famous gangsters and the men who caught them.…
Background Welcome to the FBI Files on Historical Figures & Groups archive at The Black…
The release of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) document by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory…