Virgin Galactic Spaceflight with Italian Air Force sees delay due to manufacturing defect

Owing to a manufacturing defect, Billionaire Richard Branson's SpaceShipTwo Unity 23 flight with the Italian Air Force has been pushed to mid-October. The spaceflight mission was earlier scheduled to launch on September 2. However, following the July 11 crewed flight mishap, the Federal Aviation Admission (FAA) had suspended all the upcoming Virgin Galactic spaceflight until further notice.

As per reports, the manufacturing defect was identified when the company was conducting its usual third-party inspection during groundwork. The inspection is a standard protocol undertaken by the commercial spaceflight company as a general safety measure. Following the assessment, the company pushed its Unity 23 flight, which was scheduled to carry 3 paying Italian Air Force members and National Research Council to study the technologies for future Spaceflight systems.

"At this point, it is not yet known whether the defect is present in the company's vehicles and what, if any repair work may be needed," Virgin Galactic said in a statement.

Although, FAA suspended all the forthcoming flights owing to the ongoing Unity 22 SpaceShipTwo investigations, which flew Richard Branson and five other crew members to the 'edge of the space.' Virgin Galactic said in a statement that the current postponement is not due to the FAA-related investigation. "Our test flight processes and procedures are rigorous and structure to identify and resolve these types of issues we look forward to taking to the skies again soon," Virgin Galactic CEO, Michael Colglazier said in a statement.

FAA probe into Virgin Galactic Unity 22 SpaceShipTwo

The FAA has suspended all the upcoming Virgin Galactic spaceflights until further notice. The announcement came as a "safety" measure after the administration launched a probe into the matter to discover the reason behind the spaceplane's deviation from the planned trajectory on July 11. The spaceflight to the edge-of-the-space went off its stipulated path for a total of 1 minute and 41 seconds.

Nearly a minute into the space trip, the flight blared a red warning light from its dashboard, which indicated its off route descent, FAA added. At about twenty miles in the air above the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico, two mishaps occurred as the spacecraft pulled itself against gravity at more than twice the speed of sound.“The flight did drop below the altitude of the airspace … for a short distance and time (1 minute and 41 seconds)," Virgin Galactic confirmed.

With inputs from AP Image: AP (representative)