BLASTING off to the edge of space in SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic’s commercial spacecraft, may be one step closer after the successful testing last week of a new solid-liquid hybrid rocket motor. The test follows a review of a fatal explosion in 2007.
In 2004, the aircraft and rocket maker Scaled Composites of Mojave, California, won the Ansari X prize for SpaceShipOne, the first commercial spacecraft to reach suborbital space. Its motor burned a solid fuel using liquid nitrous oxide as an oxidiser.
It was during fuel flow tests with nitrous oxide that an explosion occurred at Scaled Composites’ facility on…
