Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Dream Chaser full-scale, flight test vehicle is ready for transportation to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in California where Phase Two flight tests will be conducted in coordination with Edwards Air Force Base (AFB).
Dream Chaser program upgrades and initial hardware testing were completed at SNC’s Louisville, Colorado, spacecraft assembly facility and within the next several weeks the same Dream Chaser vehicle that conducted Phase One flight testing will arrive at NASA’s AFRC.
SNC will begin a series of pre-flight ground evaluations to verify and validate the vehicle’s system and subsystem designs and then will begin its Phase Two free-flight testing. These activities are being conducted through a Space Act Agreement with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
The vehicle will undergo a series of tests building on those performed in Phase One, including tow-tests, pre-flight tests and ending with free-flight testing. SNC is also performing additional critical tests to validate the Dream Chaser’s orbital flight software and calculate the spacecraft’s handling and performance characteristics.
Image: Courtesy of SNC.
August 5, 2016
