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#1 2019-10-16 13:30:46

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

All of our local TV stations and newspapers had a release today about SNC's Dream Chaser being built in Louisville, Colorado. Our local Mars Society chapter may make an effort to visit the plant and get a closeup of the space plane, a reentry system similar to the Space Shuttle.
This is strictly the cargo version, designed to haul cargo to, and return sensitive experiments back to Earth, from ISS.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2019-10-16 13:32:57)

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#2 2019-10-16 17:48:59

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Saw an article earlier in the day indicating that its swinging into production mode for more ships.

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#3 2020-08-18 17:54:45

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

More of the ship that could is in the COTS topic.

Sierra Nevada aims to complete Dream Chaser space plane in March

sierra-nevada-corp-snc-dream-chaser-hg.jpg

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#4 2020-08-19 12:44:28

Terraformer
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From: Ceres
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,800
Website

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Ooh, nice. The Shuttle, as it ought to have been.

Any word on what the first one will be called?


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#5 2021-02-10 22:40:11

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Dream chaser has been commented quite a bit under cots but this is progress on making it to fully functional...
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the global aerospace and national security company owned by Eren and Fatih Ozmen, is a step closer to landing the world's first commercial spaceplane on U.S. soil.

Dream Chaser, America's Spaceplane, will service the International Space Station (ISS) under a NASA contract in 2022; the vehicle will return from the ISS to a runway landing for the first time since NASA's space shuttle program ended in 2011.

"Dream Chaser is the only commercial, lifting-body space vehicle capable of a runway landing anywhere in the world. That's how astronauts prefer to travel to and from space and it's no wonder," said SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen. "The opportunity for our spaceplane to land on this historic runway where so many shuttle missions did before underscores both the practical advantages of Dream Chaser and its time-honored place in NASA's space exploration heritage."

Among its many attributes, Dream Chaser has the ability to land at any licensed landing site with a suitable 10,000 ft. runway capable of handling a typical commercial jet.

The location for landing is under the FAA for doing a batch of studies....

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) awarded the re-entry site license to Cape Canaveral Spaceport Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) in Florida at request of the state's aerospace economic development agency, making it the first commercially licensed re-entry site. The SLF, now referred to by Space Florida as the Launch and Landing Facility, at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) was the first purpose-built landing site for an orbiter returning from space. A total of 78 shuttle missions landed at the SLF.

The application process for the Re-entry Site License included an environmental assessment in collaboration with NASA, the FAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the community. SNC supported Space Florida, the state's aerospace economic development agency, in the agency's license application by providing inputs to sonic boom and risk analysis.

Next steps for SNC include continuing its work with the FAA to be issued a license to operate Dream Chaser re-entries at the SLF, building on the success of Space Florida's license application.

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#6 2021-04-11 11:31:44

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

The Angry Astronaut is a great fan of the Dream Chaser technology, and considers the Sierra Nevada approach to building a commercial Space Station quite feasible. And by the company (owned by two billionaires), affordable.

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#7 2022-06-25 03:23:31

Mars_B4_Moon
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Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Meet the ‘Dream Chaser,’ the Supersonic Space Craft Taking on Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic

https://robbreport.com/motors/aviation/ … 234694132/

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#8 2022-09-14 20:43:26

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Test flight ... Dream Chaser dropped from a helicopter and lands smoothly

An attempt to copy URL failed

This should be easy to find .... the story includes a video showing parts of the flight ...

Follow up later ... the video may have been from November of 2017...

Following the captive carry phase, the Dream Chaser performed a free flight test on November 11, being released by the Chinook from approximately 10,000 feet above ground level and autonomously flown to Edwards AFB Runway 22L, successfully landing and rolling out to a full stop, also known for first space shuttle landing on a concrete runway.

The test was conducted in 2017 .... I used this search string: Videos of Dream Chaser Chinook drop Test

This is almost 5 years ago. There ** should ** be more recent activity.

Update a bit later ... do we have a member with detective experience?

The team working on Dream Chaser seems to still be at work, but in my investigation this morning, I found years old reports.  The plane itself seems to be similar to the ** very ** success X37b, which has Air Force funding and a national security mission.

(th)

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#9 2022-09-15 09:10:24

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

The fundamental notions behind Dreamchaser,  X-37B,  and the Space Shuttle are pretty much identical.  All 3 are upper-stage spaceplanes launched vertically by rocket booster vehicles.  All 3 are flat-bottomed hypersonic/supersonic wave-riders.  All 3 use low-density refractory insulation on lateral skins and lee-side surfaces.  All 3 use slow ablatives for their nosetip and leading edge solutions.  All 3 are winged horizontal-landing designs. 

Those are all well-known solutions for entry from Earth orbit,  and there have been several other similar designs.  They ultimately derive from what was designed but never flown for the X-20 Dyna-Soar that was cancelled in 1963.  Better materials for much of these design approaches have been introduced since 1963.  In particular,  carbon-carbon composite has replaced graphite with zirconia rods as the nosetip and leading edge solution,  and we now have the low-density ceramics,  Avcoat ablative,  and the PICA/PICA-X ablatives for lateral and leeside skins.

Dreamchaser's only real problem has been being starved for government funding. It was not selected for the COTS cargo and crew programs,  when SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner were.  2020 hindsight suggests the Starliner selection might have been a mistake.   

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#10 2022-09-15 14:51:42

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,781
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Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Tom,
DreamChaser is based on HL-20. After the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, NASA was worried they would never again be allowed by Congress to fly Shuttle. So they developed HL-20. The name implies it was based on HL-10, a lifting body developed by NASA in 1966. However, it was actually based on the Soviet BOR-4, an unmanned test article used to test heat shield tiles for Buran, the Soviet copy of Shuttle. But BOR-4 had a body shape based on Spiral. Spiral was the Soviet response to Dyna-Sor. Spiral had a lifting body, cockpit for a single pilot. Spiral had a single small turbojet engine for a powered landing. It was launched on a two-stage rocket, which was to be launched from the back of a supersonic aircraft. Spiral had variable dihedral wings: folded back behind it's lifting body for atmospheric entry, moved to an angle for hypersonic flight, and flat/level for subsonic flight and landing. The BOR-4 unmanned test article had wings with a fixed dihedral (angled for hypersonic flight), no cruise-back jet engine, and smaller vertical stabilizer. BOR-4 landed in the Indian ocean. An Australian intelligence aircraft was able to take detailed photographs while it was floating. This gave them size, shape, density vs sea water, and centre of gravity from how it floated. NASA analyzed it from those photographs and found it flew better than any lifting body NASA developed. All lifting bodies have a control problem at a certain speed range, but BOR-4 was designed so it's control problem was at trans-sonic speed (mach 1.1 to mach 0.9). At that speed the lifting body is high up in the air with nothing to collide with but a cloud. NASA's lifting bodies had control problems at low speed including landing. You don't want control problems when trying to land.

Spiral prototype parked outdoors in Russia: (click image for Astronautix page on Spiral)
spiral2.jpg mig105bk.jpg spiral3v.jpg

Astronautix: BOR-4

Wikipedia: HL-20

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#11 2023-12-26 13:54:00

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Anticipation.....

Dream Chaser is getting tested at NASA

After a journey spanning almost two decades, Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser reusable spaceplane, named Tenacity, is officially undergoing environmental testing at NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility located at NASA's Glenn Research Center in anticipation of its maiden flight to the International Space Station (ISS), currently scheduled for April 2024.

The environmental testing consists of analyzing the spacecraft's ability to withstand rigorous vibrations during launch and re-entry, along with the harsh environment of outer space, including extreme temperature changes and vacuum conditions. This testing comes after Sierra Space announced the completion of Tenacity at its facilities in Louisville, Colorado last month, along with the delivery of Sierra Space's cargo module, Shooting Star, to the Neil Armstrong Test Facility that same month, as well.

"Our platform includes Dream Chaser, a revolutionary, highly reusable commercial spaceplane with global runway access, and the first business-ready commercial space station, leveraging the most advanced expandable structural architecture that will exponentially decrease the cost of product development and manufacturing in space."

Sierra Nevada naming its first spacecraft "Tenacity" is only fitting given Dream Chaser's long and difficult journey getting to this point. This includes rejections, company buyouts, legal proceedings, engineering designs, test flights, and finally being selected by NASA in January 2016 to deliver cargo to the ISS.
Less than a year after being approved by NASA, Dream Chaser successfully performed a successful free flight test at Edwards AFB in southern California in November 2017, which was a huge milestone for the spacecraft and the advancement of the commercial space industry.

The goal of Dream Chaser is to provide a more cost-effective method for delivering cargo and supplies to the ISS, as while the spaceplane will be launched on a rocket, it will land like an airplane just like NASA's Space Shuttle used to do. This will further enable its reusability capabilities, as NASA has contracted Dream Chaser for a minimum of six cargo resupply missions to the ISS during its contract.

Dream Chaser's maiden flight next year will be a collaboration between flight and ground controllers at the Dream Chaser Mission Control Center in Louisville, Colorado, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. During this flight, Tenacity will conduct a myriad of in-flight tests after launch and prior to docking with the ISS. This includes performing vehicle maneuvering demonstrations within the ISS approach ellipsoid, which is a 4 x 2 x 2-kilometer (2.5 x 1.25 x 1.25-mile) invisible border encircling the ISS.

Unlike the autonomous docking system employed on SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, Dream Chaser will be docked and undocked to the ISS using the Canadarm2, which is a 17-meter-long (56-foot-long) robotic arm built by the Canadian Space Agency and installed on the ISS in 2001. During this mission, Tenacity is slated to deliver more than 3,500 kilograms (7,800 pounds) to the ISS and stay docked with the orbiting laboratory for approximately 45 days before being undocked by Canadarm2 and returning to Earth.

Once Dream Chaser is greenlit for future flights after this first mission, it will be capable of delivering approximately 5,200 kilograms (11,500 pounds) of supplies to the ISS while staying docked for up to 75 days. Additionally, Dream Chaser will be capable of returning more than 1,600 kilograms (3,500 pounds) of experiments and cargo from the ISS to Earth, with more than 4,000 kilograms (8,700 pounds) of trash being discarded during Earth reentry using the Shooting Star cargo module.

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#12 2023-12-27 15:41:11

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Look a the last paragraph in post #9 just above.  I still stand by that assessment.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#13 2024-02-03 13:39:19

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser under construction in Colorado

Dream Chaser is currently being stacked at Kennedy Space center for it's inaugural flight test to the ISS. It's great to finally see this happening, as it's a well thought out and executed design.

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