Ozmens’ SNC Dream Chaser® Spaceplane Closer to Commercial Runway Landing
SPARKS, Nev. February 8, 2021 (SNC PR) – Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the global aerospace and national security company owned by Eren and Fatih Ozmen, is a step closer to landing the world’s first commercial spaceplane on U.S. soil. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) awarded the re-entry site license to Cape Canaveral Spaceport Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) in Florida at request of the state’s aerospace economic development agency, making it the first commercially licensed re-entry site. Dream Chaser, America’s Spaceplane®, will service the International Space Station (ISS) under a NASA contract in 2022; the vehicle will return from the ISS to a runway landing for the first time since NASA’s space shuttle program ended in 2011.
“Dream Chaser is the only commercial, lifting-body space vehicle capable of a runway landing anywhere in the world. That’s how astronauts prefer to travel to and from space and it’s no wonder,” said SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen. “The opportunity for our spaceplane to land on this historic runway where so many shuttle missions did before underscores both the practical advantages of Dream Chaser and its time-honored place in NASA’s space exploration heritage.”
Among its many attributes, Dream Chaser has the ability to land at any licensed landing site with a suitable 10,000 ft. runway capable of handling a typical commercial jet. The spaceplane’s low-g entry and runway landing protects sensitive payloads and provides immediate access to payloads upon landing. The first orbital vehicle in SNC’s Dream Chaser fleet will be named the Dream Chaser Tenacity™ spaceplane.
“A runway landing capability provides significant advantages over other return options,” said Janet Kavandi, former NASA astronaut and executive vice president of SNC’s Space Systems business area. “I was fortunate to land on this historic runway for my three NASA shuttle missions, and I understand how a spaceplane provides a safer and more benign entry experience for humans, as well as delicate payloads. Astronauts can immediately depart the vehicle, and researchers have access to their experiments almost immediately after landing.
SNC congratulates Space Florida on this licensing that will accelerate alternative options to commercial space travel and make future space travel more accessible to more people.”
The SLF, now referred to by Space Florida as the Launch and Landing Facility, at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) was the first purpose-built landing site for an orbiter returning from space. A total of 78 shuttle missions landed at the SLF.
The application process for the Re-entry Site License included an environmental assessment in collaboration with NASA, the FAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the community. SNC supported Space Florida, the state’s aerospace economic development agency, in the agency’s license application by providing inputs to sonic boom and risk analysis.
Next steps for SNC include continuing its work with the FAA to be issued a license to operate Dream Chaser re-entries at the SLF, building on the success of Space Florida’s license application.
For more information, visit www.sncorp.com.
About Dream Chaser Spaceplane
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.
About Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC)
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 Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Space, as a Tier One Superior Supplier for the U.S. Air Force and is the only aerospace and defense firm selected as a 2020 US Best Managed Company. For nearly 60 years, SNC has delivered state-of-the-art civil, military and commercial solutions including more than 4,000 space systems, subsystems and components to customers worldwide, and participation in more than 450 missions to space, including to Mars.
23 responses to “Ozmens’ SNC Dream Chaser® Spaceplane Closer to Commercial Runway Landing”
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Now, is this referring to the cargo-only version?
(Which is okay, gotta start somewhere…)
Yes, as they only have notional plans to finish development of a crewed version.
I’d love to see them finish the development of the original DreamChaser, but absent a government contract, it’s hard to see that happening
I do recall them signing an MOU with the Europeans back in the day. Don’t know if that’s gonna go anywhere.
It hasn’t so far. The Euros have been playing the Lucy-with-the-football game for a long time now anent manned spacecraft.
an excellent company run by excellent people…and I think you will see the crewed version. even landing at Ellington 🙂
Yes, Bob, SNC is an unusual entity, IMO, it’s neither OldSpace nor NewSpace, it’s SNCSpace. The Dream Chaser team have really hung in there and they deserve to have their dream realised. Stay safe, Paul.
well if they can perfect the return to earth through landing at normal airports…in my view they will have a seller there. I am not sure Boeing’s Starliner survives, unless it replaces Orion
Trouble is the development costs for a crewed version; time could also be a factor as competition comes online.
A second round of commercial crew funding such as Nasa arranged for for commercial cargo would go a loong way towards realizing this dream. I’m a big fan, so here’s hoping
Starliner will survive so long as NASA needs it for dissimilar redundancy in ISS crew transport. If a manned Dream Chaser materializes, though, you could well be right that Starliner fades away.
Looks like first Dream Chaser orbital launch, SNC Demo-1, is still expected during 2022 via the Vulcan-Centaur launch vehicle.
“-I understand how a spaceplane provides a safer and more benign entry experience for humans,-“.
The original method of a capsule parachuting into the ocean is the safest method possible. It may be “benign” for the reentry vehicle in terms of no exposure to corrosive saltwater but that does not make up for all the other complications of a spaceplane, not the least of which is the mass penalty. The escape system problem is another such mistake in kind as the solid fuel tractor escape tower is a close-to-perfect design. It is another dead end among several that NewSpace keeps offering us.
The only feature of the dreamchaser that seems beneficial is the non-toxic nitrous oxide/propane RCS.
other then the abort…I am not sure why one is more dangerous or risky then the other
A capsule needs no RCS inputs once it starts pulling G’s- it is self-stabilizing. Half the planet is covered in water. Water is soft. Parachutes work with zero control inputs. Not sure…really? And the tower abort system has the least mass to accelerate away from the stack. Certain design features, like 4 wheels instead of 5 on a car, are always going to work better. Look at the ME-262 and a modern jetliner.
Actually, 3/4ths of the planet is covered in water.
And water is only soft if you hit it slowly. So water landing safety is directly linked to parachute reliability.
Modern chutes need “control inputs” to properly time their stepwise unreefing.
Tower abort systems for capsules riding boosters with SRBs need to be very big and powerful – and heavy – to pull the capsule away from the SRBs in the event of an anomaly. Tower abort motors are usually solids themselves and, thus, have notably inferior ISPs compared to the hypergolic liquids employed in pusher-type abort systems and require more propellant mass to impart the same amount of delta-V.
You just lie. God, so ridiculous.
Worthless arguments. You would argue it makes the toilet too heavy.
Don’t complain about the mass penalty of the stubby wings of a lifting body while still saying the solid fuel tractor tower is a perfect design. Check out how much that escape tower on the Orion weighs.
Sorry but the mass penalty goes beyond the stubby wings- everything that goes with it like landing gear, flight control system, and internal structure for everything to attach to. And I will complain about anyone saying how much an escape tower weighs compared to something with no escape tower. The solid fuel tractor tower and the capsule, which carries the crew with the least mass, is a nearly perfect design.
No it isn’t. For one thing, it provides escape during only about the first third of vehicle ascent. If anything goes pear-shaped between escape tower jettison and orbit, you’re likely to have a very bad day.
The most dangerous part of the launch. Not really needed after that and that ton and a half of toxic hypergolics on the crew dragon are a safety problem the whole time people are in the capsule. The tractor tower is as good as it gets while the other systems are all trying to save money or make money and sacrificing crew safety- read about it on my blog: https://iceonthemoon.org/20…
I don’t have to read about it on your blog – you repeat it often enough on places I actually go. Like here.
The first third of ascent is certainly the most dangerous for SLS. That’s when those huge, unstoppable, solids are roaring and shaking everything like paint mixers at Sherwin-Williams. Super Heavy doesn’t have any of those. If no possible escape for most of ascent is okay for SLS then at least a decent shot at escape throughout the entire 1st stage burn ought to be alright for Starship – which can be achieved by chilling in its Raptors on the pad.
Every space capsule ever flown had more than enough hypergolics on board to kill all the occupants if a leak occurred. None ever did. The Apollo service module had a lot more hypergolics aboard than either Crew Dragon 2 or Starliner. Yet the only time an Apollo service module ever failed was when an oxygen tank exploded after a fire started inside it.
Same old twisted lies and misinformation. Paint shaker B.S.
Where to start with all the garbage you just made up? Anybody who knows much about space knows the games you are playing.
Anybody who knows much about space knows I’m right. Which lets you out.
SRBs give a notoriously rough ride for as long as they burn. The bigger they are relative to the core stage, and the more there are, the rougher the ride. SRBs are, in essence, enormous flaming organ pipes. They generate ungodly amounts of low-frequency and infrasound energy as they burn.