This July, Richard Branson made history by becoming the first billionaire to hop on a rocket ship and travel to the edge of space. His company, Virgin Galactic, touted the mission as a “landmark achievement and a historic moment for the new commercial space industry.” But the triumphant mood didn’t last for long. Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that it’s currently overseeing an investigation into a problem that occurred during the July 11 flight. In the meantime, all Virgin Galactic vessels are grounded until further notice.

This decision came not long after a New Yorker article penned by Nicholas Schmidle revealed that Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo veered off course during its descent back to the runway in New Mexico. This deviation, known as the “entry glide cone”, caused the vehicle to stray beyond its mandated airspace for 1 minute and 41 seconds— a big no-no for the FAA.

According to Schmidle, the two pilots onboard should have aborted the mission as soon as warning lights appeared on the ship’s console, indicating that the craft was not climbing steeply enough, and therefore would not have enough glide energy to reach its designated runway. Instead of aborting the mission, however, the pilots allowed the spaceplane’s engines to go at full throttle for the required one full minute.

In its initial statement Wednesday afternoon, the company defended the safety of the flight, which had been dubbed “Unity 22,” saying that it disputes what it termed “the misleading characterizations and conclusions” in Schmidle’s article.

“Unity 22 was a safe and successful test flight that adhered to our flight procedures and training protocols. When the vehicle encountered high altitude winds which changed the trajectory, the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters,” the company said.

“Although the flight’s ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, it was a controlled and intentional flight path that allowed Unity 22 to successfully reach space and land safely at our Spaceport in New Mexico. At no time were passengers and crew put in any danger as a result of this change in trajectory.”.

The statement added that the pilots of the spaceplane encountered high-altitude winds, and “responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions.”

Mark Stucky, former flight test director for Virgin Galactic, disagrees.

“The facts are the pilots failed to trim to achieve the proper pitch rate, the winds were well within limits, they did nothing of substance to address the trajectory error, & entered Class A airspace without authorization,” he tweeted on September 1st.

Stucky was also one of the sources for Schmidle’s article. He told Schmidle that he had expressed concerns regarding Virgin Galactic’s safety practices and the integrity of the flight program as far back as 2018, and when management swept these problems under the rug, his concerns grew.

In 2019, he wrote in an e-mail to his fellow pilots that “failure to admit mistakes in flight test is a cancer that must be nipped at the bud.” 

Stucky was stripped of his flight duties in May and fired eight days after Branson’s trip to space.

What Next?

While the results of the FAA investigation are still pending, it certainly strips away much of the luster surrounding Virgin Galactic’s space tourism offer, which it’s charging for $450,000 per seat. The ban also means that the next Unity mission, scheduled for later this month, in which VSS Unity was supposed to deliver members of the Italian Air Force to suborbital space, probably won’t happen. 

But the story doesn’t end here. The next episode of the billionaires’ race to space is already on its way, as Elon Musk and SpaceX prepare to launch their first all-civilian space mission on September 15th. So settle in, grab a popcorn, and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.