Testing continues ahead of the first flight of Dream Chaser. The so-called “mini shuttle” will be the first spacecraft to dock to the International Space Station (ISS) and then land back at the Launch and Landing Facility (LLF), formerly the Shuttle Landing Facility, since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
Tenacity, the first Dream Chaser flight vehicle, will fly cargo missions to the ISS under the Commercial Resupply Services-2 round of NASA contracts. Sierra Space would be the third and final company to fly under this contract. Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus resupply vehicle along with SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon v2 complete the contract. Dream Chaser is expected to provide a minimum of seven uncrewed cargo missions under this contract.
In response to NSF, Sierra Space outlined the remaining steps ahead of the reusable vehicle’s first flight.