Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crashes during California test flight Video will begin in 5 seconds. RAW VISION: One dead after Virgin Galactic crash A Virgin Galactic suborbital spacecraft carrying two pilots crashes in the Mojave desert during a test flight. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has crashed during a test flight, killing the co-pilot and injuring the pilot. The pilot ejected and suffered "moderate to major injuries," Kern County Sheriff's spokesman Ray Pruitt said. The US Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board said they were investigating. Television images showed wreckage scattered on the floor of California's Mojave Desert. At least one person is dead after the crash. Ground controllers lost contact with the SpaceShipTwo just after 10 am local time following the rocket ship's release from the WhiteKnightTwo jet that carried it aloft, said an FAA spokesman, Lynn Lunsford. The Associated Press cited a photographer who saw the crash as saying that SpaceShipTwo exploded after being dropped by the carrier aircraft. "During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo," Virgin Galactic said in a tweet on Friday. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson tweeted that he was flying to be with the team and was thankful for the messages of support he had received. The wreckage of SpaceShipTwo. The spaceship was undergoing its first powered test flight since January. More than 800 people have paid or put down deposits to fly aboard the spaceship, which is carried to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and released. The spaceship then fires its rocket motor to catapult it to about 62 miles (100 km) high, giving passengers a view of the planet set against the blackness of space and a few minutes of weightlessness. Virgin Galactic - owned by Branson's Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi - sells seats on each prospective journey for $US250,000 ($270,490), with full payment due at the time of booking. SpaceShipTwo during a flight in April. Stephen Hawking, Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher and Russell Brand are among the celebrities to sign up for flights. Virgin Galactic reports taking deposits totalling more than $US80 million ($86.5 million) from about 700 people. The spaceship is based on a prototype, called SpaceShipOne, which 10 years ago won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for the first privately developed manned spacecraft to fly in space. Friday's test was to be the spaceship's first powered test flight since January. In May, Virgin Galactic and spaceship developer Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp, switched to an alternative plastic-type of fuel grain for the hybrid rocket motor. Aerospace blogger Doug Messier who appears to have witnessed the events tweeted: "Saw on [sic] of crash sites. Body still in seat...We drove to one of the debris sites. Debris from the ship was scattered all over the road. The accident is the second this week by a United States space company. On Tuesday, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded 15 seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station. While the dawning of a second US space age has generated a buzz because of the involvement of billionaires such as Branson, Elon Musk, Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos, the loss of a second private craft this week served as a reminder that the risks haven't diminished with time. "There is a price to be paid for a whole new era of a very complex and risky business," said Marco Caceres, director of space studies for Fairfax, Virginia-based consultant Teal Group. A lot of money is going to be lost and people are going to die. If you want to develop this industry any time soon, you have to take some risks, and that means flying a lot. Branson said last month that Virgin Galactic was targeting its first commercial flight in spring 2015, with the billionaire and his son to be aboard for the initial launch. Virgin Galactic plans to operate commercial flights from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The company sent the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane to New Mexico last month to aid familiarisation with airspace rules in the El Paso, Texas, area and practice landings and diversions, as well as simulate launches. The program has suffered numerous setbacks, with three people working for Scaled Composites killed in an explosion in 2007. Virgin Galactic -- backed by Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments PJS - says it's still on track to become the world's first commercial spaceline, having accepted more than $80 million in deposits from a clientele that includes some of the world's highest net-worth individuals. Reuters and Bloomberg