Minute-long free flight moves Dream Chaser closer to Florida launch, landing

A mini-shuttle’s glide to a California runway landing last weekend previewed planned Kennedy Space Center touchdowns that are possible within three years.

Recalling NASA’s prototype space shuttle orbiter Enterprise 40 years ago — but with no crew on board — Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser dropped from altitude, deployed landing gear and rolled 4,200 feet to a stop at Edwards Air Force Base on Veterans Day.

The prototype Dream Chaser’s successful 60-second free flight followed four years after one that first skidded off the runway because of landing gear problem.

“We came and back did it again with a better, stronger, more advanced vehicle, and this time we stuck the landing,” said Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president in charge of SNC’s Colorado-based Space Systems division. “It’s a huge step forward.”

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Pending NASA’s approval, the minute-long free flight is expected to be the Dream Chaser’s last test flight before a mid-2020 blastoff from Cape Canaveral atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, on an International Space Station supply mission.

After losing its bid to fly astronauts to the station, SNC was one of three companies NASA selected for its next round of commercial resupply contracts starting in 2019, along with incumbents SpaceX and Orbital ATK.

Saturday morning’s test simulated the last two-and-a-half miles of a Dream Chaser’s return from space, which look much like those flown by the larger space shuttle, Sirangelo said.

A helicopter dropped the Dream Chaser from about 12,500 feet. Flight computers running software designed for orbital flights commanded the Dream Chaser to make left and right turns before it lined up the runway for a touchdown at 191 mph.

“The flight went for its full duration,” said Sirangelo. “It met all the goals that we had set out, and actually more.”

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The free flight completed SNC’s final, $8 million milestone under a NASA program started before contracts to fly astronauts were awarded to Boeing and SpaceX.

Next year, the company expects to complete a review of the cargo Dream Chaser’s final design. The system will features a cargo module attached to the back of the orbiter that allows it to ferry up to about 12,000 pounds of food, equipment and science research to the laboratory orbiting 250 miles above Earth.

After that, SNC will start to build up its Florida team in preparation for the 2020 launch, working in existing facilities still to to be confirmed.

At least the first two missions will launch on ULA’s Atlas V and will be expected to land at KSC’s former Shuttle Landing Facility — now operated by Space Florida — weather permitting.

The 14,000-pound, 30-foot long Dream Chaser test vehicle (about one-quarter the length of a shuttle) has returned to the NASA hangar once occupied by Enterprise before it is shipped back to Colorado.

Enterprise flew five free flights between August and October of 1977, each with two-person test crews, prior to Columbia's liftoff on the shuttle program's inaugural orbital mission on April 12,1981.

The Dream Chaser's final approach and landing had a familiar look to Steve Lindsey, a five-time shuttle pilot and commander who led Discovery's final mission in 2011 and is now vice president of SNC’s Space Exploration Systems.

"It was collectively for us probably the longest minute of our lives watching it," he said. "But it sure was rewarding at the end when it touched down safely."

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FlameTrench.