WASHINGTON — Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser took a step closer to its long-awaited first flight by powering up its systems in a key test.
The corporate announced May 31 that it had powered up the spaceplane in its assembly facility for the primary time, feeding electrical power into the vehicle that, in space, could be generated by its solar panels and turning on flight computers and other components.
“This can be a milestone that points to the longer term and is a key moment in an extended journey for Dream Chaser,” said Tom Vice, chief executive of Sierra Space, in an announcement concerning the test.
The test comes as the corporate prepares to ship the primary Dream Chaser, called Tenacity, to NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio, the previous Plum Brook Station. There, the spacecraft will undergo thermal vacuum tests before shipping to Cape Canaveral for final launch preparations.
Sierra Space didn’t disclose a schedule for those milestones within the announcement of the powering up test. Speaking during a panel on the 38th Space Symposium in April, Janet Kavandi, president of Sierra Space, said Dream Chaser would ship to the test facility “within the July timeframe.”
She said the vehicle could be tested there for a couple of months before shipping to Florida. “We ought to be able to go by the tip of this 12 months,” she said of launch plans for Dream Chaser.
That schedule will depend not only on the readiness of Dream Chaser but additionally the manifest of missions going to the International Space Station in addition to the status of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. Dream Chaser is slated to launch on the second Vulcan mission, after a launch of an Astrobotic lunar lander that has slipped to later this summer due to launch vehicle testing issues.
In preparation for that launch, NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa recently trained on Dream Chaser systems, including learn how to transfer cargo between the spacecraft and the ISS. Moghbeli and Furukawa are assigned to the Crew-7 mission, scheduled to launch to the station as soon as mid-August, remaining there through February 2024.
Dream Chaser will initially be used to move cargo to and from the ISS through a Business Resupply Services contract with NASA. Sierra Space, though, is planning other applications for the vehicle, including a crewed version. That DC-200 variant will likely be a bit bit larger and have a rather different outer mold line, Kavanadi said on the conference.
In preparation for those future crewed flights, Sierra Space is planning to pick its own skilled astronaut corps. “We are going to do this upon the primary successful landing of Dream Chaser,” she said, with an initial group of 12 to fifteen people.
Those astronauts will likely be trained at a facility the corporate is establishing in Florida, which may also be used to coach researchers and other private astronauts planning to go to Orbital Reef, the business space station Sierra Space is developing in partnership with Blue Origin and a number of other other firms.
