Seconds After Release From WhiteKnightTwo, Rocket Briefly Fires and Fails

ANN Real-Time Update -- 1012ET, 12.13.20: Virgin Galactic has been pretty quiet about Saturday's failed attempt to see SS2 Unity safely into space, as it has accomplished on two previous occasions when launched from Mojave, CA.

However; we do have a LITTLE bit of info from VG that suggests that Saturday's misfire may be related to electronic issues that shut down the single rocket engine just as it was ignited in flight. A VG twitter explained,  “After being released from its mothership, SpaceShipTwo Unity’s onboard computer that monitors the rocket motor lost connection. As designed, this triggered a fail-safe scenario that intentionally halted ignition of the rocket motor.”

Original Report: 2020 is going to go down as the year that most of us will want to forget -- and we have a feeling that Virgin Galactic feels much the same way.

After numerous delays, some induced by the COVID pandemic, and dealing with the move to New Mexico, VG still has not launched a spacecraft from the new facility... though, today, they tried.

In a flight to over 40,000 feet to allow for a proper altitude for the drop of the small spacecraft, video shows a good release from the Mothership, followed by brief seconds of separation as it dropped away, and then ignition of SpaceShipTwo's single rocket engine... for a an even briefer second.... followed by an apparent shutdown and some gaseous venting as it turned back to the airport.

Early info, via twitter stated that, "The ignition sequence for the rocket motor did not complete. Vehicle and crew are in great shape. We have several motors ready at Spaceport America. We will check the vehicle and be back to flight soon."

VG CEO, Michael Colglazier, commented on twitter about the flight test, "Today’s flight landed beautifully, with pilots, planes, and spaceship safe, secure, and in excellent shape — the foundation of every successful mission! Our flight today did not reach space as we had been planning. Seeing firsthand how our pilots brought Unity in for a picture-perfect landing after an off-nominal condition confirmed this approach. I am even more confident that this is the level of safety that consumers will want and will be expecting from us. As we do with every test flight, we are evaluating all the data, including the root cause assessment of the computer communication loss. We look forward to sharing information on our next flight window in the near future."

Scant concrete data is known about what actually happened and why, outside of the visual evidence seen on video, but we expect updates shortly... we'll bring you that data when available.

FMI: https://www.virgingalactic.com/, https://twitter.com/allegrolemon/status/1337801520339881986