Sierra Space has successfully completed rigorous environmental testing of its Dream Chaser Tenacity spaceplane. These tests were conducted at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, marking a crucial milestone on the path to orbital operations.
The Dream Chaser, developed by Sierra Space, is not just a space vehicle; is a platform designed to benefit and protect life on Earth. With the successful completion of these environmental tests, the Sierra Space team along with NASA experts are preparing the spaceplane and its cargo companion, Shooting Star, for shipment to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There, the Final testing and integration ahead of its inaugural launch planned for later this year.
Tom Vice, CEO of Sierra Space, highlighted the importance of this milestone, stating that “the successful completion of an incredibly rigorous environmental testing campaign in close collaboration with NASA is an important milestone and puts Dream Chaser on track for operations later this year«. This statement highlights significant progress towards transforming the connection between space and Earth.
Over the past few months, the Dream Chaser and Shooting Star have undergone a series of intense tests, including shock, vibration and thermal vacuum tests at the Armstrong facility. These tests, designed to simulate the extreme conditions of launch and space flight, are essential to ensure mission success.
The collaboration between Sierra Space and NASA also extended to crash testing with Sierra Space’s launch partner, United Launch Alliance (ULA). This involved the flight separation system that will deploy the Dream Chaser from the upper stage of ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. Following crash testing, the vehicles were subjected to sinusoidal vibration tests over a period of five weeks to simulate the intense conditions of a rocket launch. Once the vibration tests were completed, additional crash tests were performed to simulate the dynamic environment during the separation of the two vehicles prior to deorbit and reentry. The Dream Chaser and Shooting Star also underwent thermal vacuum testing at the Armstrong Space Propulsion Facility. These tests, which simulate extreme temperature variations in space, They are essential to ensure the proper functioning of systems during the mission.
With Dream Chaser Tenacity on track for launch in 2024 as part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contract and a second spaceplane in production, Sierra Space is leading the way into the future of space. commercial space exploration and the protection of life on Earth.
