Sierra Space's Dream Chaser Spaceplane Completes Pre-Flight Testing at NASA Facility

Sierra Space's Dream Chaser Spaceplane Completes Pre-Flight Testing at NASA Facility

Sierra Space, a commercial space company and emerging defense tech prime building a platform in space to benefit and protect life on Earth, announced the successful completion of a rigorous environmental test suite on the revolutionary Dream Chaser spaceplane, Tenacity, at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio.

As the first Dream Chaser moves toward orbital operations, Sierra Space and NASA test team members are preparing the vehicle, along with its Shooting Star cargo companion, for shipment to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final testing and integration ahead of its inaugural launch later this year.

“Successful completion of an incredibly rigorous environmental testing campaign in close partnership with NASA is a significant milestone and puts Dream Chaser on track for operations later this year,” said Sierra Space CEO, Tom Vice. “This is the year that we transition from rigorous research and development to regular orbital operations and – in doing so – transform the way we connect space and Earth.”

Over the past several months, Dream Chaser and Shooting Star have undergone intense shock, vibration, and thermal vacuum testing at the sprawling Armstrong Test Facility. In December, the test teams conducted shock tests with Sierra Space’s launch partner United Launch Alliance (ULA), using the flight separation system that will deploy the spacecraft from the upper stage of ULA’s second Vulcan Centaur rocket.

The two vehicles were then stacked in launch configuration on the world’s most powerful spacecraft shaker table inside the test center’s Mechanical Vibration Facility. Sine vibration testing – conducted over a five-week period – simulated the intense conditions and environment of a launch on a Vulcan Centaur rocket. After vibe testing concluded, the teams conducted another shock test – this time with the flight separation system between Dream Chaser and Shooting Star – to simulate the dynamic environment during the separation of the two vehicles prior to de-orbit and re-entry.

The Sierra Space and NASA test teams transported the vehicles to the In-Space Propulsion Facility at Armstrong for thermal vacuum or “T-VAC” testing. Temperatures in space can range from extremely cold – hundreds of degrees below freezing – to several hundred degrees Fahrenheit due to radiation from the sun. TVAC testing is a realistic thermal simulation of the flight environment and is critical to ensuring mission success. For more than five weeks, Dream Chaser and Shooting Star were subjected to multiple cold-hot cycles in a vacuum environment, between -150F to +250F, with teams conducting functional tests at temperature plateaus to verify system performance. 

Dream Chaser and Shooting Star will soon be transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and staged inside the storied Space Systems Processing Facility (SSPF) – originally built to be the last stop for components of the International Space Station – for final integration and testing. The final environmental tests – acoustic testing and electromagnetic interference and compatibility testing – will be performed onsite inside the SSPF. The remaining work on the thermal protection system will also be completed there.

Dream Chaser Tenacity, the first in a fleet of spaceplanes, remains on track for a 2024 launch on the first of seven missions to resupply the International Space Station for NASA under a Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contract. A second spaceplane, named Reverence, is in production in Sierra Space’s Louisville, Colo., factory. Armstrong Test Facility is part of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Located on 6,400 acres in Sandusky, Ohio, it is home to some of the world’s largest and most capable space simulation test facilities, where ground tests are conducted for the U.S. and international space and aeronautics communities. 

Click here to learn more about Sierra Space's Dream Chaser Spaceplane.

Click here to learn more about Sierra Space' Shooting Star Spaceplane.


Publisher: SatNow

GNSS Constellations - A list of all GNSS satellites by constellations

beidou

Satellite NameOrbit Date
BeiDou-3 G4Geostationary Orbit (GEO)17 May, 2023
BeiDou-3 G2Geostationary Orbit (GEO)09 Mar, 2020
Compass-IGSO7Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)09 Feb, 2020
BeiDou-3 M19Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)16 Dec, 2019
BeiDou-3 M20Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)16 Dec, 2019
BeiDou-3 M21Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)23 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 M22Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)23 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 I3Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)04 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 M23Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)22 Sep, 2019
BeiDou-3 M24Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)22 Sep, 2019

galileo

Satellite NameOrbit Date
GSAT0223MEO - Near-Circular05 Dec, 2021
GSAT0224MEO - Near-Circular05 Dec, 2021
GSAT0219MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0220MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0221MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0222MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0215MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0216MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0217MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0218MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017

glonass

Satellite NameOrbit Date
Kosmos 2569--07 Aug, 2023
Kosmos 2564--28 Nov, 2022
Kosmos 2559--10 Oct, 2022
Kosmos 2557--07 Jul, 2022
Kosmos 2547--25 Oct, 2020
Kosmos 2545--16 Mar, 2020
Kosmos 2544--11 Dec, 2019
Kosmos 2534--27 May, 2019
Kosmos 2529--03 Nov, 2018
Kosmos 2527--16 Jun, 2018

gps

Satellite NameOrbit Date
Navstar 82Medium Earth Orbit19 Jan, 2023
Navstar 81Medium Earth Orbit17 Jun, 2021
Navstar 78Medium Earth Orbit22 Aug, 2019
Navstar 77Medium Earth Orbit23 Dec, 2018
Navstar 76Medium Earth Orbit05 Feb, 2016
Navstar 75Medium Earth Orbit31 Oct, 2015
Navstar 74Medium Earth Orbit15 Jul, 2015
Navstar 73Medium Earth Orbit25 Mar, 2015
Navstar 72Medium Earth Orbit29 Oct, 2014
Navstar 71Medium Earth Orbit02 Aug, 2014

irnss

Satellite NameOrbit Date
NVS-01Geostationary Orbit (GEO)29 May, 2023
IRNSS-1IInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)12 Apr, 2018
IRNSS-1HSub Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (Sub-GTO)31 Aug, 2017
IRNSS-1GGeostationary Orbit (GEO)28 Apr, 2016
IRNSS-1FGeostationary Orbit (GEO)10 Mar, 2016
IRNSS-1EGeosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)20 Jan, 2016
IRNSS-1DInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)28 Mar, 2015
IRNSS-1CGeostationary Orbit (GEO)16 Oct, 2014
IRNSS-1BInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)04 Apr, 2014
IRNSS-1AInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)01 Jul, 2013