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Raumfahrt - NASA-Favorit: Dream Chaser Shuttle im Test-Modus Update-1

19.01.2016

Illustration: Sierra Nevada Corp.

A winged spacecraft that resembles a mini space shuttle will join the fleet of private rockets ferrying supplies to the International Space Station. NASA has announced that its new round of US $14 billion in commercial resupply contracts for the space station includes the Dream Chaser spacecraft made by the Sierra Nevada Corporation.

The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) will share the $14 billion with SpaceX and Orbital ATK: the two private spaceflight firms that previously participated in NASA’s commercial resupply contracts. Both SpaceX and Orbital ATK use cargo craft that launch aboard rockets and return to Earth by splashing down in the ocean or burning up in the atmosphere, respectively. By comparison, SNC’s Dream Chaser launches aboard rockets but glides back to Earth and lands on a runway like the former NASA space shuttle.

“We plan to order services based on our current estimates of station needs, which provides NASA important flexibility to maximize the use of the space station,” said Kirk Shireman, the International Space Station (ISS) program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The decision to boost the number of commercial providers of resupply runs from two to three “provides more options and reduces risk through a variety of launch options and mission types,” according to the NASA press release. NASA’s contracts guarantee a minimum of six cargo resupply missions from each of the three providers. The cargo flights are scheduled to begin in 2019 and go through 2024.

NASA’s statement about the need to reduce risk comes after SpaceX and Orbital ATK both suffered the loss of a cargo ship during resupply missions within the span of a year. During that time, a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft intended to resupply the space station was also lost. The addition of SNC’s Dream Chaser to the resupply roster would at least expand NASA’s options in a worst-case scenario.

The Dream Chaser spacecraft’s gentler return to Earth has added benefits, according to a Planetary Society blog post. During a 14 January press briefing, Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the ISS program, mentioned that the Dream Chaser’s ability to land on runways means scientists can access the results of space station experiments within hours. An experiment that returns aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule that splashes down in the ocean might not be accessible for days.

It’s uncertain how much a Dream Chaser resupply mission might cost compared with a SpaceX or Orbital ATK mission. But SNC originally also bid unsuccessfully for a separate contract to ferry NASA astronauts to the space station and back with a different version of the Dream Chaser. SNC’s price in that case was $2.55 billion. By comparison, SpaceX’s winning bid for the crew transportation contract set a price of $1.75 billion. Boeing, another winner of that contract, had a price of $3.01 billion. (The commercial crew transportation missions begin in 2017.)

SNC may not have won its bid to fly astronauts to and from the space station in its mini shuttle. But the new resupply contract will at least help get the Dream Chaser off the ground and flying in service of the U.S. space program.

Quelle: IEEE

Update: 23.06.2016

Sierra Nevada Corp. moves ahead on NASA milestones for Dream Chaser spaceship

Technicians at a Sierra Nevada Corp. facility in Colorado inspect the Dream Chaser engineering test article, or ETA, which is due to be put through atmospheric flight tests. (Credit: Sierra Nevada Corp.)

After years of postponements, Sierra Nevada Corp. is planning to deliver a rebuilt test prototype of its Dream Chaser mini-space shuttle to NASA for testing in the August time frame, a company executive said today.

Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president for SNC Space Systems, also said the company has just satisfied the first milestone in its contract with NASA to develop the Dream Chaser as a cargo transport for the International Space Station.

Sirangelo provided an update on the Dream Chaser at the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2016 conference in Seattle.

In January, NASA gave the nod to SNC as well as to SpaceX and Orbital ATK to service the station during the second phase of its Cargo Resupply Services program, also known as CRS-2. Unlike SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Orbital’s Cygnus craft, SNC’s Dream Chaser has yet to fly.

SNC Space Systems’ facility in Louisville, Colo., is the development center for the winged craft, which looks like a scaled-down space shuttle. The project is just one line of business for Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corp., which is a significant defense contractor and a key player in Turkey’s TRjet aircraft development project.

It’s been a long road for the Dream Chaser, which was adapted from a lifting-body concept that was considered by NASA in the 1990s.

In 2010, Sierra Nevada Corp. began receiving millions of dollars from NASA for early development of the Dream Chaser as a transport craft for astronauts. Three years later, the Dream Chaser prototype was damaged when its landing gear failed at the end of a gliding test at California’s Edwards Air Force Base. A year after that, SNC lost out to Boeing and SpaceX in a competition for funds to keep working on crew transports.

Sirangelo said the Dream Chaser project had to be put on hold.

“It was a devastating loss for us,” Sirangelo said. “Lots of people went away. We had to lay off people. It was very hard. … The 90 people who were left on this program came to me and said, ‘We’re not ready to hang it up. We want to try again.'”

Winning the cargo development contract opened the way to resume work on the Dream Chaser. Sirangelo said his “Dream Team” is now making good progress on the retooled prototype, which is designed for atmospheric testing rather than spaceflight. Sirangelo compared the craft to the shuttle Enterprise, which NASA built in the 1970s to test the aerodynamics for the space-ready shuttles that would follow.

An artist’s conception shows the comparative size of NASA’s space shuttle and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser mini-shuttle. (Credit: SNC)

“Our version of the shuttle Enterprise is about to be finished for its next phase of flight tests,” Sirangelo said. “Somewhere in the August time frame, it’s going to be shipped off to California, to the Armstrong [Flight Research] Center and to Edwards to be in Phase 2 of flight testing, which is going to be really fun and exciting.”

Sirangelo said lessons learned from the atmospheric flight tests will be applied to the development of the orbital test vehicle, which is now being outfitted in Colorado. That test vehicle, in turn, will blaze the trail for the spacecraft that will carry cargo for NASA under the CRS-2 contract.

“We are looking to be launching on time, which is about three years from now, in the second half of 2019,” Sirangelo said. “That contract will go well into the next decade, so we need lots of help. We’re going to be hiring lots of people. If any of you guys want to come out and work on the next space shuttle, I think it’s a pretty good time to do that.”

The Dream Chaser is designed to be launched into orbit on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, and to glide back down to Earth for the return trip. Sirangelo said the craft should be able to land on any airstrip that can accommodate a Boeing 737 jet. Cargo from space could be unloaded within just a few hours. That rapid delivery capability is one of the Dream Chaser’s big selling points.

NASA’s contract calls for a minimum of six Dream Chaser cargo flights, which could translate to a billion dollars or more for SNC. Sirangelo said that he expected NASA to specify the number of flights by the end of the year, and that the number is “probably going to be a lot more” than six.

Quelle: GeekWire

Update: 25.06.2016

I tried out being a space trucker in a Dream Chaser mini-shuttle

The Californian desert rushes up in front of me. I can see the runway at Edwards Air Force Base emerging clearly from the hills, and I try to keep the nose of my spacecraft pointed straight down the centre. I am flying the Dream Chaser space plane back from a stint at the International Space Station (ISS), and am keenly aware of my delicate cargo – and the craft’s past failures.

Well, almost. In reality, I’m trying out the flight simulator for the Sierra Nevada Corporation’s space plane at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’m seated in front of three computer monitors, which show my view out of the cockpit, and rear and side views of the spacecraft as it descends. To go easy on me, the Draper crew starts the simulation after the Dream Chaser has already entered Earth’s atmosphere and headed down towards the ground, so all I have to do is aim it straight at the runway.

I get some more help from the computer: the cockpit screen has a red and a green triangle, one showing where I’m aiming and the other where I should aim. All I have to do is keep them lined up. It feels a lot like playing the world’s calmest video game – and that’s the point. Dream Chaser is designed to be smooth, comfy and easy to fly.

“If you can survive a rollercoaster, you can survive a flight on this thing,” says Seamus Tuohy, Draper’s director of space systems. “This could be the path where we transition from space travel being reserved for a few to something that is more common.”

Nicely packed

Dream Chaser is quarter the size of NASA’s former space shuttle, with folding wings that will allow it to be squished down for launch inside protective fairings on top of a wide variety of rockets. It is designed to land as gently as an aeroplane at commercial airports, and will be able to return from the ISS in just 3 to 6 hours – good features for carrying delicate experiments or injured astronauts.

The spacecraft also uses non-toxic propellant, rather than the noxious hydrazine used by the shuttle. That means people can approach the vehicle and unload its most time-sensitive cargo after it lands without having to wear protective gear. And it’s reusable: it should be good to fly again within 30 days.

The first version won’t carry astronauts, though. It will be fully automated, guiding itself to the ISS and back to the ground all on its own. That’s why Draper is involved: researchers here built the guidance and navigation systems for the Apollo missions to the moon and the space shuttle, and know what it takes to do this.

ierra Nevada switched to working on an automated version of the craft in part because it lost out on a commercial crew contract with NASA in 2014, with the job instead going to competitors SpaceX and Boeing. Earlier this year, the company was chosen for a different contract: hauling cargo and trash to and from the ISS. That sort of space trucking doesn’t need human help.

Still, they hope astronauts will fly the Dream Chaser some day. “We’re looking at making sure that we have something we can go back and have a human fly,” Tuohy says. “Computers are better than humans at executing things according to plan. But if something unforeseen happens, sometimes a human is best.”

Flight test

So that’s why I’m here testing out the flight simulator as if I were a real pilot. Despite all the advantages of Dream Chaser, it has had some setbacks. I wasn’t kidding about past failures being on my mind as I tried to land: the first test flight in 2013 ended in an uncontrolled skid when part of its landing gear failed to deploy.

I’m hoping to do better, but it’s harder than it looks. The throttle responds more slowly than I expect it to, and the little guiding triangle seems to dance away from me. But with a light touch and small moves, I bring the wheels down to the runway and hit the brakes.

“That is a comfortable landing! Way to go!” simulation engineer Alan Campbell congratulates me.

I leave feeling fairly convinced that this space truck could actually make it easier for ordinary people to fly to and from space. But I’m worried about its prospects. The next test flight is planned for December this year, and the first of six uncrewed Dream Chaser missions to the ISS isn’t scheduled until 2019. The ISS itself only has funds guaranteed until the end of 2024. By the time this plane is ready for a crew, where will they go?

There are several possibilities, including an inflatable space hotel or a Chinese-run space station. Tuohy doesn’t seem worried. “I bet you there will be somewhere else to go by the time the ISS comes down,” he says.

Quelle: NewScientist

Update: 26.07.2016

Sierra Nevada Corporation Passes Second Milestone –
Dream Chaser® Spacecraft on Track to Supply Cargo to ISS

SPARKS, Nev. (July 25, 2016) – Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has passed the second Integration Certification Milestone under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract. NASA assessed and fully approved SNC’s detailed approach for getting the Dream Chaser Cargo System to the International Space Station (ISS). SNC’s approved strategy demonstrates a thorough understanding of design requirements and available resources on both a system and subsystem level. Dream Chaser will provide a minimum of six cargo delivery missions to and from the ISS between 2019 and 2024. The first milestone was passed several weeks ago and outlined technical, logistic and schedule procedures for the program.

“Successful completion of the second Integration Certification Milestone within six weeks of the first major milestone demonstrates that the Dream Chaser team is moving at full-speed to meet NASA’s cargo delivery needs,” said Steve Lindsey, senior director of programs for SNC’s Space Systems business area and Dream Chaser co-program manager. “We very much appreciate NASA’s help and support through this milestone and those to follow. Our collective SNC/NASA team is confident in our design and strategy for the future and look forward to completing the work necessary to bring our unique cargo services solution to the ISS as rapidly as possible.”

Milestone 2 Key Components

Completion of Milestone 2 means NASA and SNC collectively agree on the certification criteria used to confirm Dream Chaser designs meet CRS-2 mission requirements. These qualification and verification plans will be utilized during future integrated design and test milestones to validate Dream Chaser Cargo System capabilities.

Dream Chaser Flight Tests Will Support CRS2 Progress

The current flight vehicle has been upgraded with several cargo system design components to support multiple test objectives - verifying the spacecraft’s performance during final approach and landing, directly supporting the CRS-2 Certification Plan approved during Milestone 2. This will ultimately accelerate development of the first orbital mission and increase confidence through flight-tested systems. The vehicle was originally developed and tested in partnership with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which included a full-test campaign at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center leading up to the October 2013 approach and landing test.

About Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Space Systems

Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Space Systems business area based in Louisville, Colorado, designs and manufactures advanced spacecraft, space vehicles, rocket motors and spacecraft subsystems and components for the U.S. Government, commercial customers, as well as for the international market. SNC’s Space Systems has more than 25 years of space heritage and has participated in more than 450 successful space missions through the delivery of 4,000+ systems, subsystems and components. During its history, SNC’s Space Systems has concluded more than 70 programs for NASA and more than 50 other clients.

About Sierra Nevada Corporation

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) provides customer-focused technology solutions in the areas of aerospace, aviation, electronics and systems integration. SNC has been honored as one of “The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Space,” and one of America’s fastest growing companies. SNC’s diverse technologies are used in applications including telemedicine, navigation and guidance systems, threat detection and security, commercial aviation, scientific research and infrastructure protection. Founded in 1963 and headquartered in Sparks, Nevada, SNC operates under the leadership of owners, CEO Fatih Ozmen and President Eren Ozmen, with a workforce of nearly 3,000 personnel in 34 locations in 19 U.S. states, England, Germany and Turkey providing global support to customers.

For more information on SNC visit www.sncorp.com and follow us at Facebook.com/SierraNevCorp and Twitter @SierraNevCorp. Sierra Nevada Corporation and SNC are trademarks of Sierra Nevada Corporation.

Quelle: SNC

Update: 29.07.2016

Sierra Nevada ramps up for Dream Chaser production, critical NASA testing

The company building NASA’s newest cargo-hauling spaceship is launching a big hiring spree as it prepares to send its Dream Chaser space plane off for a series of tests, culminating in its most rigorous test flight yet.

Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems, based in Louisville, expects to truck a shrink-wrapped, self-flying test version of the Dream Chaser to Edwards Air Force Base in southern California in early September.

The “engineering test article” Dream Chaser will be tested by the company and NASA for weeks on the same air strip NASA used for the first flights of the space shuttle 39 years ago.

Late this year or early 2017, a Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter will haul the Dream Chaser nearly 2.5 miles above the Edwards runway and drop it.

If everything goes according to plan, Dream Chaser will fly on its own for 10 minutes and land after conducting a series of small maneuvers to test the spaceship’s aerodynamics, handling, flight software and other features.

The flight and tests leading up to it will be a critical stretch in Dream Chaser’s development. But it’s also momentous, said Mark Sirangelo, lead executive SNC Space Systems and the driving force behind creating Dream Chaser for the past 11 years.

“We feel like we get to pick up the torch of the space shuttle program,” Sirangelo said. “We get to be housed in [the] same building and use many of the same facilities. The flight will be on [the] exact same approach as the first shuttle landing. It feels special.”

While the tests are being done in and above California’s Mojave desert, SNC Space Systems plans to start increasing its staffing in Louisville fivefold, to more than 500, in coming months.

“We’re ramping up, and we’re hiring to build Dream Chaser for that first orbital flight and beyond,” said Steve Lindsey, SNC Space System’s program manager.

Being in a state with a large space industry workforce and universities with strong engineering and aerospace programs will help fill most of its near-term jobs needs, though SNC will also draw from the many applicants it’s attracting from outside Colorado, he said.

Quelle: DBJ

Update: 30.07.2016

-
NASA’s new space plane is getting ready to take flight

NASA’s next cargo delivery vehicle—a spunky little space plane that looks like it could be an offspring of the space shuttle—is getting ready to fly.

The svelte and snub nosed Dream Chaser will soon be shipped to the Mojave desert in California where it would begin a series of ground tests that would eventually culminate with a flight from an altitude of 2.5 miles high.

To get to this point, however, has been a long road for its manufacturer, the Sierra Nevada Corp. The company had originally pursued a NASA contract to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. But it lost out to SpaceX and Boeing, and so it then turned its attention to another contract—one to fly cargo and supplies to the station.

The bid was something of a longshot, especially since the incumbents were well liked and had proven vehicles. But Sierra Nevada last year won a slice of the contract, along with incumbents Orbital ATK and SpaceX, and could begin flying by late 2019.

The victory breathed life into the program, and the company has been progressing ever since, said Mark Sirangelo, the heads of Sierra Nevada’s space systems division. He said he was especially proud that the Dream Chaser would be tested in the same area where so many other programs got off the ground, from the first test flights of the shuttle to Chuck Yeager’s breaking of the sound barrier.

“We’re picking up that torch and carrying it forward,” Sirangelo said. “There’s a lot of historical meaning to us, a continuation of the long legacy of America testing advanced airplanes and leading the world in this arena.”

First, the Dream Chaser will undergo ground testing. But eventually it will be carried aloft by a heavy-lift helicopter, then let go, gliding back down to Earth to practice one the most important parts of flight: the landing.

Quelle: The Washington Post

Update: 29.09.2016

Dream Chaser Space Plane to Fly United Nations Mission in 2021

**Artist’s illustration of Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane in Earth orbit.**
**Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation**

A private space plane is set to fly the United Nations' first-ever space mission five years from now.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) are teaming up to launch a two-week robotic mission to low-Earth orbit in 2021 using the company's Dream Chaser spacecraft, representatives of both organizations announced Tuesday (Sept. 27).

"One of UNOOSA's core responsibilities is to promote international cooperation in the peaceful use of outer space," UNOOSA Director Simonetta Di Pippo said in a statement.

"I am proud to say that one of the ways UNOOSA will achieve this, in cooperation with our partner SNC, is by dedicating an entire microgravity mission to United Nations member states, many of which do not have the infrastructure or financial backing to have a stand-alone space program," she added.

Sierra Nevada Corporation is developing its Dream Chaser spaceplane to ferry astronauts to Earth orbit and to the International Space Station. <a href="http://www.space.com/15366-dream-chaser-private-space-plane-infographic.html">See how the Dream Chaser space plane works in this infographic</a>.

The 2021 mission is targeted primarily at developing nations, but any U.N. member states can apply to put a payload on board. Nations whose experiments are chosen will be asked to foot part of the mission's total bill, though poorer countries will likely receive a price break, Sierra Nevada representatives said. UNOOSA and Sierra Nevada are also looking for sponsors to help fund the mission.

Over the next year, the two organizations will hash out details of the mission, which "will provide United Nations member states with the ability to access space in a cost-effective and collaborative manner within a few short years," Di Pippo said. "The possibilities are endless."

The 30-foot-long (9 meters) Dream Chaser looks like a much smaller version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle orbiter. Like the space shuttle, Dream Chaser launches vertically, lands horizontally on a runway and is reusable.

Dream Chaser can carry up to seven passengers, but it's also a cargo-hauling craft; indeed, NASA recently selected the uncrewed version of Dream Chaser to provide resupply and trash-disposal services to the International Space Station.

Quelle: SC

Update: 27.01.2017

Dream Chaser Spacecraft Arrives at NASA Armstrong

Sierra Nevada Corporation's space vehicle suspends in a hangar at NASA's Armstrong to undergo testing.

Credits: NASA Photo / Ken Ulbrich

Sierra Nevada Corporation delivered its Dream Chaser spacecraft Wednesday to NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, located on Edwards Air Force Base. The spacecraft will undergo several months of testing at the center in preparation for its approach and landing flight on the base's 22L runway.

The test series is part of a developmental space act agreement SNC has with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The upcoming test campaign will help SNC validate the aerodynamic properties, flight software and control system performance of the Dream Chaser.

The Dream Chaser is also being prepared to deliver cargo to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) contract beginning in 2019. The data that SNC gathers from this test campaign will help influence and inform the final design of the cargo Dream Chaser, which will fly at least six cargo delivery missions to and from the space station by 2024.

Top Image: SNC delivers Dream Chaser to NASA Armstrong posing it with the HL-10 lifting body flown the 1960s (NASA Photo / Ken Ulbrich).

The Dream Chaser spacecraft pictured in California's desert as it heads to Edwards Air Force Base.

Credits: NASA Photo / Ken Ulbrich

Quelle: NASA

Update: 28.01.2017

PHOTOS: Dream Chaser Delivered to Edwards AFB for Next Flight Test

Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser spacecraft was delivered to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center this week, where it will undergo several months of testing in preparation for its second approach and landing flight. The data SNC gathers from this test campaign will help influence and inform the final design of the cargo Dream Chaser, which will fly at least six cargo delivery missions to and from the International Space Station for NASA by 2024. A crew version could become a reality one day as well. Photo Credit: NASA / Ken Ulbrich

It has been just over a year now since NASA announced the winners of their multi-billion dollar second round of Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2) contracts to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) from 2019 through 2024. SpaceX and Orbital ATK both secured contracts, but Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), who was not selected by NASA for a big commercial crew contract in 2014, was awarded a CRS-2 cargo contract too, allowing for the dream of their Dream Chaser spaceplane to now become a reality.

This week SNC took another significant step towards that reality, delivering an engineering test article of their “mini shuttle” to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, located at Edwards Air Force Base, where it will now undergo several months of testing in preparation for its next approach and landing flight test on the base’s 22L runway.

The Dream Chaser test article in autonomous free flight over NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California Saturday, October 26, 2013. Photo Credit: SNC

SNC put their test article through its first free flight Approach and Landing test, ALT-1, at Armstrong three years ago, and the test went about as good as SNC could have hoped for, until the command was given to deploy its landing gear. Only two of its three gear deployed, causing the vehicle to skid off the runway upon landing, sustaining minor structural damage.

The problem was traced to a mechanical issue with the specific landing gear, rather than something related to bad software (none of the primary systems that gave the commands that control the flight failed or had any problems).

“The 99% of the flight that we really wanted to get – which was does this vehicle fly, is it able to be controlled, does the software work, can we autonomously fly the vehicle in to approach and land on a runway – all that was 100% successful,” said Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president, SNC’s Space Systems.

“In fact, we probably performed better than the original test standards were meant to be.”

SNC has made significant structural and systems improvements to the test article since, including the composite wings and aeroshells, and invested heavily in maturing the vehicle’s orbital avionics, guidance navigation and control, the flight software, and employed a number of new processes, all of which will be used on the orbital vehicle as well. The advanced orbital Thermal Protection System (TPS) was installed on the vehicle’s skid too, in order to do advanced testing of the actual orbital TPS.

The test article will not only aid development of the orbital cargo vehicles to support NASA’s CRS-2 requirements, but will aid the development of a crewed version as well. Both cargo and crew variants share an 85% commonality, and the cargo-version can actually be made crew ready if NASA needed it.

Should NASA offer up another round of Commercial Crew contracts in 2020, SNC will put in a bid for their crew-version Dream Chaser.

SNC hopes to get everything they need out of the upcoming ALT-2 test, but will fly more to validate the aerodynamic properties, flight software and control system performance of the spacecraft if needed.

In the historic hangar where the Enterprise shuttle got tested, the Dream Chaser® space plane gets ready for its own testing. Photo Credit: NASA / Ken Ulbrich

With the addition of orbital avionics to the test article, the same the actual orbital CRS-2 vehicle will use on missions to and from the ISS, SNC will earn direct certification credit out of the upcoming flight test series from NASA. All the testing and certifications will happen on the ground and within the atmosphere, therefore eliminating the need for an orbital flight test.

The first Dream Chaser launch will be an operational CRS-2 mission for NASA, and the company says it will be ready for that flight atop a ULA Atlas-V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. in the first half of 2019.

When that first Dream Chaser arrives in Florida in about two years, it will be processed at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Operations and Checkout Building (O&C), then transported to nearby Launch Complex-41 for launch. It will then fly to dock or berth at the ISS and remain for up to 200 days, before returning to Earth and going back to the O&C to be readied for its next flight.

SNC technicians inspect the Dream Chaser engineering test article (ETA ahead of its second flight test program, expected to begin soon at Edwards AFB in California. Photo Credit: SNC

A lot of other factors go into turnaround times between flights, but the spacecraft itself will be turned around in less than 60 days, implying a flight rate of up to 4-6 missions per vehicle.

However Dream Chaser is also capable of landing on virtually any runway at least 8,000 feet long, anywhere around the world, without requiring specialized equipment. With a propulsion system fueled by Nitrous Oxide and propane, ground crews will have immediate access to the spacecraft after landing, with only 10-20 minutes needed to exit the runway, keeping conflicts with other aircraft to a minimum.

And being as small as it is, it can be loaded on small cargo planes for shipment virtually anywhere.

This all makes the spacecraft an attractive option for commercial companies who want to launch everything from science experiments to cubesats, so SNC has been looking into landing at commercial airports for some time, having launched their “Dream Chaser-Preferred Landing Site Program” to work with spaceports and commercial airports to become designated landing sites.

Midland, Texas, International Air and Space Port recently achieved the first step toward becoming an approved landing site for Dream Chaser commercial missions, and is now considered a compatible landing site by SNC.

All Dream Chasers, whether serving commercial or NASA missions, would use KSC facilities for vehicle processing.

Dream Chaser has been a long time coming. Originally based off a Russian heritage design called the Bor 4, NASA Langley put in thousands of hours of research into the vehicle in the 80′ and 90’s, when the agency was looking for an emergency return vehicle from the ISS. The agency completed a couple different designs, one being the HL-20 (now the Dream Chaser), and created the control laws to fly it (and had a lot of astronauts come in to try it and fly it as well).

Eventually, NASA abandoned those plans completely, leaving astronauts to rely exclusively on the space shuttle and Russian Soyuz as the emergency vehicles for the ISS

BELOW: Photos of the Dream Chaser test article arriving at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, CA. Photos Credit: NASA / Ken Ulbrich

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