It looks as if long-suffering Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE; $2.96 +0.06 +2.07%) shareholders who have watched the value of their investments in the space tourism company sink could soon get some relief.
What are the details that were not disclosed concerning Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle VSS Unity and how was it seriously damaged during a flight test in February 2019?
Wikipedia shows the only flight that would seem to qualify as the candidate for this was Flight 16 / VSS Unity VF-01
The horizontal stabilizer was seriously damaged. Technicians covered up ventilation holes that was designed to vent the area of pressure. The vehicle came close to crashing. I got this explanation from Google AI:
"In a 2019 SpaceShipTwo test flight, the horizontal stabilizer experienced significant damage due to a buildup of air pressure within the composite structure after ventilation holes were mistakenly covered up. This incident, revealed in a book, occurred during a powered test flight from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The damage, which involved a bond holding the trailing edge of the stabilizer coming unglued, was not publicly disclosed by Virgin Galactic at the time."
This occurred in February 2019. Virgin Galactic announced the merger with SCH five months later. Never disclosed the incident or that SpaceShipTwo couldn't actually fly.
This article prompts the obvious question:
What are the details that were not disclosed concerning Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle VSS Unity and how was it seriously damaged during a flight test in February 2019?
Wikipedia shows the only flight that would seem to qualify as the candidate for this was Flight 16 / VSS Unity VF-01
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSS_Unity_VF-01
The horizontal stabilizer was seriously damaged. Technicians covered up ventilation holes that was designed to vent the area of pressure. The vehicle came close to crashing. I got this explanation from Google AI:
"In a 2019 SpaceShipTwo test flight, the horizontal stabilizer experienced significant damage due to a buildup of air pressure within the composite structure after ventilation holes were mistakenly covered up. This incident, revealed in a book, occurred during a powered test flight from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The damage, which involved a bond holding the trailing edge of the stabilizer coming unglued, was not publicly disclosed by Virgin Galactic at the time."
This occurred in February 2019. Virgin Galactic announced the merger with SCH five months later. Never disclosed the incident or that SpaceShipTwo couldn't actually fly.