On Oct. 31, 2014, during its 55thtest flight and its fourth powered test flight, SpaceShipTwo suffered a serious accident, resulting in the destruction of the vehicle and death of one pilot, while another pilot parachuted to safety with injuries.

SpaceShipTwo is a suborbital space plane designed and built by Scaled Composites. The vehicle is designed to carry two pilots and six passengers on short space flights. Its predecessor SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004, after becoming the first private craft to fly people to space and back twice in the span of a week. Virgin Galactic has partnered with Scaled Composites with the intention of using SpaceShipTwo for commercial suborbital space flight. [Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crash: Full Coverage]

Here is a timeline of major events and test flights for Virgin Galactic:

October 2004 - Virgin Galactic Announced -British billionaire Sir Richard Branson announces that he is forming the new company Virgin Galactic to build a passenger space plane for suborbital flights after witnessing SpaceShipOne win the Ansari X Prize.The new company would work closely with SpaceShipOne's builder Scaled Composites to build a new two-pilot, six-passenger spacecraft called SpaceShipTwo.

Dec. 7, 2009: First SpaceShipTwo Vehicle Unveiled-Virgin Galactic hosted a major event to debut the first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, called the Virgin Space Ship (VSS) Enterprise.

March 22, 2010: First Capture-Carry Flight-The carrier plane WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) went aloft for the first time while carrying SpaceShipTwo. The plane was unmanned and was not released.

July 16, 2010: First Crewed Flight-SpaceShipTwo was carried by the WhiteKnightTwocarrier plane for 6 hours and 12 minutes, but was not released. Peter Siebold and Michael Alsbury rode aboardthe VSS Enterprise and evaluated the spacecraft's systems and functions.

Oct. 10, 2010: First Solo Glide Flight-SpaceShipTwo was released at 46,000 feet, and had a total flight time of 13 minutes. The test was a glide flight only, meaning the engines were not turned on. The vehicle was piloted by Peter Siebold and copiloted by Mike Alsbury.

April 29, 2013: First Powered Test Flight-SpaceShipTwo ran its engines for 16 seconds while free of the carrier plane. The vehicle climbed to a maximum altitude of 56,000 feet (17,000 meters), and reached Mach 1.2 or 761 miles per hour (1224 km/h) at sea level, fast enough to break the sound barrier. This was SpaceShipTwo's 26th test flight, and it was preceded by two glide test flights, on April 3 and April 12. The flight was piloted by Mark Stucky and co-piloted by Mike Alsbury.

Sept. 5 2013: Second Powered Test Flight-SpaceShipTwo burned its engines for 20 secondsfour seconds longer than on the previous flight. The craft beat its previous record for altitude and speed, reaching a maximum altitude of 65,000 feet (21031 meters) and a top speed of Mach 1.6 or 1,217 miles per hour at sea level. The craft was piloted by Mark Stucky and copiloted by Clint Nichols.

Originally posted here:

Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo: Test Flight Milestones