The Dream Chaser spacecraft, the likely successor to the Space Shuttle, has passed a successful Captive Carry test at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Centre.
A Chinook helicopter successfully carried the Dream Chaser to the same altitude and flight conditions it will experience before release on a Free Flight test.
The test obtained data and evaluated systems such as radar altimeters, flush air data system, air data probes, navigation system, as well as overall system performance in a flight environment.
“We are very pleased with results from the Captive Carry test, and everything we have seen points to a successful test with useful data for the next round of testing,” said Lee Archambault, director of flight operations for the Dream Chaser program at Sierra Nevada Corporation, the vehicle's manufacturer.
The Dream Chaser is designed to be a reusable, multi-mission space utility vehicle, capable of transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS), then to Earth returning for a runway landing. At just 9 m long, it is roughly a quarter the total length of the Space Shuttles.
The Dream Chaser Cargo System was selected by NASA to provide cargo delivery and disposal services to the ISS under the Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) contract. All Dream Chaser CRS2 cargo missions are planned to land at Kennedy Space Centre’s Shuttle Landing Facility.
This test is the first of two scheduled for 2017. The next Captive Carry test will incorporate fine tuning needs or lessons learned from the first test flight and hopefully clear the way for a free flight test.
The test vehicle had been upgraded to include several components being integrated into the Dream Chaser Cargo System design, allowing the current tests to act as a bridge between previous work with NASA and the next-generation vehicle currently under development for cargo resupply missions.
[The Dream Chaser spacecraft at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center. Photo: NASA]