After the astronauts lost a communication channel with SpaceX and Boeing on the International Space Station, the Dream Chaser Sierra Nevada miniature space shuttle had a new mission - flying cargo for NASA.
“It's quite exciting. We have been chasing him for a long time, ”said Corporate Vice President Mark Sirangelo, head of Sierra Nevada Corporation's Space Systems, told Discovery News.
The space agency also re-attempted to re-establish communications with SpaceX and Orbital ATK, which are currently managing cargo on the way to the station. The contract with each company concerns at least six freight runs per station between 2019 and 2024.
The reusable manned spacecraft Dream Chaser is based on the design of the Sierra Nevada mini-shuttle, which has been continued for over a decade, including four years with support from NASA.
An automated version of Dream Chaser has folding wings. Thus, the spacecraft can correspond to the internal standard 5-meter ship used by the United Launch Alliance as a vehicle for cargo delivery to space.
The cargo ship Dream Chaser also includes a removable combined cargo bay, which will be discarded during return to Earth. The equipment and the results of experiments in a spacecraft can be quickly restored as soon as the vehicle makes a landing on the runway. “We will be home in about 8-10 hours. Then the unloading will take about 30 minutes, "said Sirangelo of Discovery News.
The Dream Chaser can carry up to approximately 44,000 pounds of cargo in the main compartment and make up to 4 flights per year, exceeding the NASA delivery requirement of 11,000 pounds, which is very good.
The cargo compartment of the spacecraft can also refuse from debris, and from excess cargo on the way back, giving NASA the opportunity to supplement it with something else. The SpaceX capsules will drop the load with a parachute in the Pacific Ocean, while Orbital's capsules will be burned in the atmosphere during the return. Dream Chaser is the only vehicle that lands on the runway.
“We are fully confident that at the moment it is the best cargo system that exists and will exist because it is capable of meeting and interacting with other NASA trucks in the same system,” Sirangelolo told reporters at an industrial exhibition last year. .
Sierra Nevada offered the former crew members an updated version of the Dream Chaser in accordance with the commercial program of the NASA team. But the space agency chose the passenger version of the SpaceX capsule and the new Boeing ship, named as CST-100 Starliner. Vehicles are expected to start work in early 2017.
