Virgin Galactic Aborts First Powered Spaceflight from New Mexico Spaceport

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Virgin Galactic Aborts First Powered Spaceflight From New Mexico Spaceport :

On December 12th, Virgin Galactic aborted its first powered test flight of its tourist spaceplane, VSS Unity, from the company's home at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The vehicle's engine cut out after briefly igniting.

The vehicle's engine cut out early, forcing the spaceplane to glide home

This morning, Richard Branson's space tourism company Virgin Galactic had to abort its first powered test flight of its spaceplane from the company's home in New Mexico, bringing the vehicle home before it could reach space. During the flight, the spaceplane's engine cut out too early and the vehicle's two pilots had to glide back down to the ground early.

The aborted engine ignition was caught live by a Twitch livestream provided by the outlet NASASpaceflight. The video showed the spaceplane, called VSS Unity, dropping away from its carrier aircraft in mid-air as planned. The vehicle then briefly ignited its main engine, according to the video, but the ignition cut out after just a moment. On a typical flight, the spaceplane's engine will stay ignited for a full minute, propelling the vehicle to the edge of space.

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