For years it’s been touted as the next Space Shuttle, but Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser has finally been announced as an actual live spacecraft—and it’s headed for low-Earth orbit.
Although it’s technically capable of taking seven astronauts, the 15-foot long spacecraft has a contract with NASA to provide seven cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station under the space agency’s Commercial Resupply Service 2 (CRS2) contract.
Dream Chaser doesn’t just look like a mini Space Shuttle. It flies like it, too. Taking off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, Dream Chaser returns to Earth with a gentle runway landing, just as the Space Shuttle did. F
or its NASA missions, it will land at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Maiden Launch
With the first vehicle—technically called DC-100 but also named Tenacity—now complete, it will soon ship to NASA’s Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio for pre-flight testing, which it should complete by the end of 2023.
Its first mission to the ISS will occur shortly after, likely in early 2024. It’s reusable up to 15 times, though a second DC-100 is already in production at the company’s manufacturing base in Colorado.
Its maiden launch into orbit will be on the second Vulcan Centaur rocket, which is due to debut on December 24 as part of Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One to the moon’s surface. Once in orbit, Dream Chaser will be autonomously guided to docking at the ISS, delivering cargo to the crew onboard
Crew Version Incoming
Although NASA doesn’t require a crewed version—it has SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and, in time Boeing’s Starliner for that—Sierra Space nevertheless has plans to take astronauts, perhaps for private clients.
It’s already announced the DC-200 crewed spaceplane, a variant with a flexible architecture capable of transporting a combination of both crew and cargo. It can land at any compatible commercial runway worldwide, just like a narrow-body commercial airliner, according to Sierra Space.
“Today we have arrived at a profound milestone in both our company’s journey and our industry’s future—one that has been years in the making and is shaped by audacious dreaming and tenacious doing,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice in a press release, also calling Dream Chaser a “breakthrough” that “redefines space travel.”
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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