Sierra Nevada Names First Dream Chaser Shuttle “Tenacity”
SPARKS, Nev., May 1, 2020 (SNC PR) — Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the global aerospace and national security leader owned by Eren and Fatih Ozmen, marked National Space Day by announcing the name of its first orbital vehicle set to launch under contract with NASA: Dream Chaser Tenacity.
“Tenacity is in SNC’s DNA,” said SNC Chairwoman and President Eren Ozmen.
“Every critical moment in SNC’s history of innovation has called for tenacity, in overcoming challenges in order to support and protect explorers and heroes. As the nation faces this current challenge, we want this vehicle to be a beacon of hope that American ingenuity – and tenacity – will bring brighter days ahead.”
SNC’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, known as “America’s Spaceplane™,” is the world’s only non-capsule, commercial spacecraft and is capable of a runway landing. Under a NASA contract, it will perform cargo delivery and disposal services to and from the International Space Station on at least six NASA missions.
“Dream Chaser is a story of grit and tenacity on the part of SNC’s team,” said John Curry, SNC’s Program Director for Dream Chaser. “NASA’s vision and ours for a next gen space shuttle with a gentle runway landing has weathered tough economic and budget resources and competing visions. The team and engineers working on Dream Chaser have believed in its superior design, knowing tenacity would lead to Dream Chaser flying in space and returning humans and science back to Earth safely.”
NASA this week selected the Dynetics team, of which SNC is an integral part, to support its Artemis mission to the moon. SNC is leading development of the crew module for NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, which will ferry astronauts and supplies to and from the moon’s surface. The program is designed to provide new science and material resources and leverage the moon as a proving ground for future Mars missions. NASA’s goal is to land astronauts on the moon by 2024 and establish sustainable missions by 2028.
About Dream Chaser Spaceplane & Shooting Star Transport Vehicle
Owned and operated by SNC, the Dream Chaser spaceplane is a reusable, multi-mission space utility vehicle. It is capable of transportation services to and from low-Earth orbit and is the only commercial, lifting-body vehicle capable of a runway landing. The Dream Chaser Cargo System was selected by NASA to provide cargo delivery and disposal services to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract. All Dream Chaser CRS-2 cargo missions are planned to land at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility. The Shooting Star cargo transport vehicle is a 15-foot attachment to Dream Chaser that provide extra storage for payloads, flexible mission options and facilitates cargo disposal upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
About Sierra Nevada Corporation
Owned by Chairwoman and President Eren Ozmen and CEO Fatih Ozmen, SNC is a trusted leader in solving the world’s toughest challenges through best-of-breed, open architecture engineering in Space Systems, Commercial Solutions, and National Security and Defense. SNC is recognized among the three most innovative U.S. companies in space, as a Tier One Superior Supplier for the U.S. Air Force, and as one of America’s fastest growing companies. SNC’s 55-year legacy of state-of-the art civil, military and commercial solutions includes delivering more than 4,000 space systems, subsystems and components to customers worldwide, and participation in more than 450 missions to space, including Mars.
13 responses to “Sierra Nevada Names First Dream Chaser Shuttle “Tenacity””
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I think that is the right name for this and what Jim showed.
Too bad he did not live to see it.
Hopefully, his family will be at the launch site when the first cargo and first manned launches occur.
Yes, he really wanted to open space up to everyone.
And Sierra Nevada Corp has shown that quality…
It’s definitely been a long road to get America’s first lifting body to space.
For one, I remember watching the ‘6 Million Dollar Man’ and reading books about the X-plane lifting bodies and such back in the day. Well, that’s two, but the actual NASA program was already over by then. And then the fits and starts over the years. Tenacity, indeed
soon to be the premier up down machine for the space station
Well, soon to premiere as an up-down machine for ISS anyway. Cargo Dragon 2 still edges it out a bit in terms of max load capability. But DC will be breaking the longstanding Dragon near monopoly on downmass return – and with faster post-landing access to boot.
A good vehicle and a good name.
Saw a tweet that there is a naming contest for Dragon on the DM2 mission. Does anybody know how SN4 will land since it has no landing gear? will it land back on the launch mount as Musk has said It will do some day? Why the activity on Grasshopper? Are they going to fly it again. getting parts? What? Just watched a video and the question was What is missing? He said a Crew escape system. I thought No landing gear. Good video though.
SN4 has landing gear in the lower skirt surrounding the engines. Same landing gear SN3 had, in fact, as that whole section of the vehicle was salvaged and reused.
One presumes SN4’s planned hop will be about the same as Starhopper’s – rise, hover, translate sideways, set down on landing pad.
Starhopper is what’s been worked on recently. Grasshopper is long-retired and in another part of TX far away from Boca Chica. Not sure what the work is for but flying it again would be pointless. Perhaps it’s being tidied up and refitted a bit as a fixed test stand for Raptors as Elon said was the intention for it, post-flight, some time ago.
Spadre Twitter provided photos showing the Hopper had cameras attached to view the launch pad, basically turning it into a camera tower. Cheaper and quicker than building one, but than that is the SpaceX way. Of course NASA would have probably spent a million dollars doing a RFP to hire a contractor to spend months building a dedicated camera tower, the NASA way…
https://twitter.com/SpacePa…
Thanks. I could not see or know that.
SpaceX should name the Dragon on the DM-2 Tenacity also. They started in ’12 and are finally going to get crew into Space and also going to ISS also for good measure. Yea!
The name and patents were there, but many of the engineers that made SpaceDev moved on went it was bought out.
At first I didn’t like the name, but now reading the rationale behind it, I do. In fact I love it. After everything SNC has gone through and still never having given up, this is indeed a very fitting name. I believe NASA will eventually see where it blundered, and in the end the Dream Chaser will be the primary vehicle servicing the ISS and future on-orbit installations. I look forward to that.