Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Commercial Space Ship Crashes During Test Flight

The commercial space ship, pictured here in an earlier test flight, crashed in the California Desert.
Photographer:Mark Greenberg Virgin Galactic
The commercial space ship, pictured here in an earlier test flight, crashed in the California Desert.

In what could be a major setback for commercial space tourism, a manned spaceship has crashed in California.

The Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two was on a test flight this morning, with two pilots aboard. Minutes after its rocket fired, the company announced on twitter that spacecraft experienced an "anomaly."

Local authorities confirm that an aircraft has gone down. And the AP reports that one pilot has been killed.

Advertisement

SpaceShip Two doesn't go all the way into orbit. But the goal is to fly into space for brief tourist trips. The trips will cost $250,000 a piece, and more than seven hundred people have already put down deposits.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.