Dream Chaser suffers landing gear failure on first free flight

Dream Chaser performs a captive carry flight above Edwards AFB in California on Thursday, suspended under a helicopter. (credit: NASA/Carla Thomas)

The engineering test article of Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser commercial crew vehicle made its first free flight on Saturday at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Saturday, but suffered the failure […]

Dream Chaser is nearly ready to fly

Dream Chaser performs a captive carry flight above Edwards AFB in California on Thursday, suspended under a helicopter. (credit: NASA/Carla Thomas)

On Thursday, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC’s) Dream Chaser spacecraft performed a “captive carry” flight at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at California’s Edwards Air Force Base. During the two-hour test, the Dream Chaser […]

Updates on commercial crew development

Last week NASA hosted a news briefing allowing the agency and the four companies that have Commercial Crew Development 2 (CCDev-2) and/or Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) funded awards to provide updates on their efforts. Much of the media attention from the briefing focused on news that the companies are planning test flights of their […]

Sierra Nevada doesn’t feel like they’ve won a “half” award

An engineering model of Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser spaceplane during its first captive carry test flight in Colorado in May 2012. (credit: SNC)

[ Third in a series of posts about the companies that won and lost in NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) competition ]

As part of a June agreement between […]

Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX win CCiCap awards

NASA announced this morning that, as reported last night, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX have all received funded Space Act Agreements for the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) phase of the agency’s commercila crew efforts. Boeing and SpaceX appear to have won the two “full” awards, receiving $460 million and $440 millon respectively, while […]

For the CCiCap losers, what’s next?

On Friday morning NASA will announce the winners of the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability, or CCiCap, awards, the next phase of the agency’s commercial crew program. Already some news is leaking out about the awardees: both the Wall Street Journal and NBCNews.com report that Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX will receive funded awards, with apparently […]

NASA plans to announce commercial crew awards next month

The administrator of NASA said Monday he expects the space agency to announce multiple awards for the next round of its commercial crew development effort by the middle of next month.

Speaking in a media telecon Monday morning, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said he expected the awards to be announced “no later than, say, mid-July […]

Sierra Nevada begins Dream Chaser flight testing

Speaking at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Washington on Friday, Mark Sirangelo of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC)( indicated that initial flight tests of his company’s Dream Chaser vehicle would begin soon. “We begin our flight tests probably next week,” he said in remarks largely overshadowed by the excitement at the […]

Is Sierra Nevada Spaceport America’s next tenant?

The New Mexico legislature is currently considering updated legislation to provide spaceflight liability indemnification, similar to what exists in several other states, including Florida, Texas, and Virginia. Senate Bill 3 would require spaceflight operators to have participants sign waivers; the company is then protected except in the case of “an act or omission that constitutes […]

Another step forward for SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor

If you go to Virgin Galactic’s web site today you’ll see a release about the first flight of WhiteKnightTwo by Virgin Galactic chief test pilot David Mackay, which took place yesterday in Mojave. “I was able to fly WhiteKnight through the full extent of its flight envelope—to its maximum altitude, speed and crosswind limit—so it […]