Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser Could Land At Ellington Space Port Near Houston

MarkWhittington writes Despite having been rejected in NASA's commercial crew program, Sierra Nevada has been very busy trying to develop its lift body spacecraft, the Dream Chaser. Having rolled out a smaller, cargo version of the spacecraft for the second round for contracts for commercial cargo to the International Space Station, the company has amended the unfunded Space Act Agreement with NASA to add a closeout review milestone that would help transition the Dream Chaser from the preliminary design review to the critical design review step. Finally, Sierra Nevada announced a new agreement on Tuesday with the Houston Airport System to use Ellington Spaceport as a landing site for the cargo version of the Dream Chaser.

Comments

Wow, I knew they were big

[tgibson]

what, with opening a second location in North Carolina and all. But they are definitely diversifying. Like most their beers I'm sure the lift body will be quite hoppy.

Re:Wow, I knew they were big

[almitydave]

That's the first thing I thought of. Different Sierra Nevada. Although now I think the brewery should make a new beer called "Dream Chaser."

Re:Wow, I knew they were big

[zifferent]

I'm with you all, and believe me I was confused. I mean why would a brewery want to launch beer into space, and really if any brewery would do it Sierra Nevada would be my last guess. It's more of a Sam Galagione, Dogfish Head type of experiment.

Re:Wow, I knew they were big

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, it didn't help my confusion that their link for more articles about Sierra Nevada was a mix of aerospace and beer

Re:Wow, I knew they were big

[Frosty Piss]

I mean why would a brewery want to launch beer into space...

To brew the ultimate "ice" beer.

Re:Wow, I knew they were big

[OzPeter]

For a moment I thought that Larry was back in a new "Dream chaser" game.

Re:Wow, I knew they were big

[disposable60]

As awesome as that sounds ... probably not a great idea.

Re:Wow, I knew they were big

[Darinbob]

The Sierra Nevada bewery definitely needs to be a sponsor of the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser.

Re: Wow, I knew they were big

[Redmancometh]

Both of these ideas would be awesome. Perhaps too awesone for real life.

America Needs Dream Chaser

[Anonymous Coward]

America clearly needs a small reusable shuttle. Dragon and CST-100 are crude. But the Commercial Crew Competition proved nothing else if not, "it is not what you know, but who you know", in procurement with Obama's activists at NASA.

Re:America Needs Dream Chaser

[jfdavis668]

Not sure how the reusable Dragon is crude. The Dream Chaser seems to be the one with limited potential. What else can you do with it?

Re:America Needs Dream Chaser

[wiredlogic]

What else can you do with it?

I bet it'll fly the Kessel run in 12 parsecs. Dragon? No way in hell.

Re:America Needs Dream Chaser

[itzly]

Both the Dragon and Dream Chaser are launched on top of a rocket. To reduce the cost, it's the rocket that needs to be reusable. The biggest difference between Dragon and Dream Chaser is that one lands horizontally using wings, and the other vertically using rockets.

Re:America Needs Dream Chaser

[VoiceOfSanity]

The issue with most all of the proposals for the re-compete contract for supplying the ISS is that all of them would have to land either a) in water (requiring a ship/barge for recovery) or b) hard landing on land (much like the Soyuz does). In both instances, you run a risk of damaging equipment you're wanting returned to Earth (water contamination, hard landing adding additional stress to hardware, etc.)

The Dream Chaser's advantage is that it can land on a runway. As long as the runway has sufficient length (Ellington's two runways are both over 8,000 ft in length) then Dream Chaser can land safely. The only real issues would be either a) a failure involving the landing gear, or b) FOD on the runway itself.

Re:America Needs Dream Chaser

[Irate Engineer]

The Dream Chaser's advantage is that it can land on a runway. As long as the runway has sufficient length (Ellington's two runways are both over 8,000 ft in length) then Dream Chaser can land safely. The only real issues would be either a) a failure involving the landing gear, or b) FOD on the runway itself.

The plan for SpaceX's Dragon 2 is also a soft powered landing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf_-g3UWQ04

Re:America Needs Dream Chaser

[Anonymous Coward]

> The plan for SpaceX's Dragon 2 is also a soft powered landing.

And have to cary half of your capsule weight in fuel to retro-burn, because the aerodynamics of your capsule is shit.

Why land in the middle of a city?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why land at Ellington? Even the slightest error and you are crashing into residential areas. Land at Kennedy or the salt flats where you have room to maneuver.

Re:Why land in the middle of a city?

[VoiceOfSanity]

Ok, speaking as someone who a) works for a major aerospace company, b) is involved with the ISS program and c) lives here in Clear Lake, there are some major benefits to landing at Ellington Field. First off, you're right down the road from the Johnson Space Center, which means anything you're bringing back down from the ISS you'll be able to deliver right to NASA or the primary contractor (which is Boeing, which sits right next to Ellington Field). So you save time and transportation costs by delivering it right there.

Second, Ellington Field's approach line is over a lot of open land. If NASA, the Air Force and the Navy uses the base for jet flights (not to mention being a drone launching site), then landing an arriving lifting body from space won't be as much of a problem. The plans for Ellington Field's space facilities was to also have launches, but you take what you can get and this is really the first company willing to commit to them.

Third, you've got the ability to route to alternate landing fields (Hobby Field, Sugar Land Regional) if there is an issue on approach.

Frankly, this does look like it'll be an interesting event if they manage to win the resupply contract.

Re:Why land in the middle of a city?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause it's 5 miles from the NASA Johnson Space Flight Center.

Peter Pan. I'm captain of the Dream Chaser.

[RevWaldo]

~ Peter Pan. I'm captain of the Dream Chaser. Grumpy Bear here tells me you're lookin' for passage to the Narnia system.
~ Yes indeed, if it's a fast ship.
~ "Fast ship"? You've never heard of the Dream Chaser?
~ Should I have?
~ It's the ship that made the Emerald City Run in less than twelve cowznofskis. I've outrun Middle Kingdom dragons. Not the local luckdragons mind you, I'm talking about the big Morgoth-bred firedrakes now. She's fast enough for you, Santa Claus.

.

it depends

[Anonymous Coward]

Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, isn't that a beer? The bottles land in the recycling bin, the beer lands in the toilet after orbiting my system

I thought they had a patent to land on water

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they just squatting on that idea without using it?

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