Richard Branson has said he will persevere with his space tourism venture following the death of a pilot killed when a rocket crashed during a test flight in California.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket came down in the Mojave Desert in California yesterday.
The company said it had "suffered a serious anomaly" after a test flight conducted by partner business Scaled Composites.
Mr Branson described the tragedy, in which another pilot was seriously injured, as "a devastating loss".
The billionaire businessman said he and his team at Virgin Galactic are doing everything they can to support the pilots' families.
Work will begin later today to establish why the space rocket crashed on the test flight.
Mr Branson has flown to the Mojave Desert to be involved in the investigation.
Virgin Galactic chief executive George Whitesides last night said: "Space is hard and today was a tough day.
"We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened. We are going to get through it.
"The future rests in many ways on hard days like this but we believe we owe it to the folks who were flying these vehicles as well as the folks who have been working so hard on them to understand this and to move forward."
SpaceShipTwo has been under development at Mojave Air and Spaceport.
It was designed to be carried into the air by the WhiteKnightTwo jet and then released before igniting its rocket to travel into space, and then returning to Earth as a glider.
The flight had taken off at 9.30am local time (4.30pm Irish time yesterday) and the two craft had separated at 10.10am (5.10pm Irish time yesterday).
A problem was discovered two minutes later and teams were sent to the crash site 40km north of the local airport.
Virgin Galactic has been the frontrunner in the race to send paying customers into space and Mr Branson said last month that he hoped to travel with his son on the first flight next spring.
Seats have been sold for more than €200,000 with full payment due at the time of booking.
The company said customers have visited Mr Branson's Caribbean home, Necker Island, and experienced G-force training.
Physicist Stephen Hawking, singer Justin Bieber, comedian Russell Brand and actor Ashton Kutcher are among the celebrities who have already signed up for flights.
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