Dream Chaser

Dream Chaser [SNC]

The Dream Chaser is a planned crewed orbital lifting-body space plane being developed by SpaceDev, now a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). Dream Chaser is designed to carry up to seven people to and from low earth orbit to carry crews to the ISS and potentially to other private space stations. The vehicle would launch vertically on an Atlas-5(402) and land horizontally on conventional runways.

The reusable Dream Chaser is based on the NASA developed HL-20 lifting body shape. For docking with the space station, Dream Chaser will use an rear mounted APAS docking adaptor.

SNC received US$20 million from NASA under the CCDev program and US$80 million under the CCDev2 program to mature the Dream Chaser design.

The primary structure of the Dream Chaser atmospheric test vehicle is already under construction. It will use the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft as a platform for drop trials of the Dream Chaser atmospheric test vehicle in 2012.