The Spacecraft That Didn’t Go Anywhere: Virgin Galactic’s Aborted Spacecraft Test Explained FOLLOW US ON: Virgin Galactic’s latest spacecraft test ended abruptly over the weekend, because of technical issues. The space tourism company owned by Richard Branson wanted to do a fist powered test flight of its spacecraft, in New Mexico. But the test flight of the SpaceShipTwo Unity, or VSS Unity, had to be aborted and the craft glided back to earth before it could reach space, because of what the company says is an issue with the rocket motor’s ignition system. It turns out that once the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Unity was released from the mothership, the onboard computers that detected and monitored the rocket motor on the craft lost connection. This triggered what is a fail-safe scenario that didn’t allow the ignition of the rocket motor to continue as it otherwise would have. The pilots then headed back to Spaceport America, the launch site, and landed safely. There were no other passengers on board this test flight.