I was wondering when they would give up on the original propellant that they were using for this rocket. It never was powerful enough to be anything other than for joy rides. If it was a structural issue, maybe the new propellant had too much force for the airframe. But the designers of this system are certainly among the best aircraft designers who ever lived, and it’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t have taken that into account.
It was initially but the project was handed off from Scaled Composites to a subsidiary of Virgin in 2012. So now I don’t now.
My guess...and I said this on the original thread I posted Friday...is that the engine might have “hiccuped.” It ignited but there was a disrupting in supply, maybe a temporary “clog.” It restarted but the force was too much for the air frame, it failed and the flutter down wings were torn off.
There weren’t any visible burn or explosion marks on the pieces on the desert floor.