A winged spaceship designed to take tourists on excursions beyond Earth’s atmosphere exploded during a test flight over the Mojave Desert, killing a pilot.

One pilot has died and another has suffered “major injury” after Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight, Californian authorities said.

Virgin Galactic says it has successfully conducted a second rocket-powered, supersonic test flight of the passenger spaceship it is developing.