Last summer, Astra’s Rocket 3.3 came crashing down after failing to reach orbit and deliver a pair of shoe-box sized satellites. Following a six-month investigation, the California-based startup identified the culprit: fuel injector blockage that resulted in combustion chamber burn-through.
A Virgin Galactic stockholder is taking the company’s execs to task, saying their penchant for covering up major failures encountered during tests of its Unity spaceplane have tanked investors’ chances of winning big in the commercial space race.
Virgin Galactic’s carrier aircraft VMS Eve took to the California skies yesterday for an important two-and-a-half-hour flight test. It’s the latest sign that the Richard Branson-founded company is preparing to resume suborbital flights.
