Dream Chaser on Track for November 2016 Launch Date
Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser Spacecraft on Track for November 2016 Launch, SpaceRef Business
“Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Dream Chaser spacecraft is “on track for its anticipated first launch in November 2016,” Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president of SNC Space Systems, told a press conference on August 5, 2014, at the AIAA SPACE 2014 Forum in San Diego.”
Related: Sierra Nevada Corporation Dream Chaser Program Expands, SpaceRef Business
“The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has announced an expansion of its Dream Chaser program, which now includes a mix of small businesses, legacy aerospace firms, university partners, and foreign space operation organizations, in “32 states, 50 Congressional districts, and 2 foreign nations.”
“Dream Chaser program, which now includes a mix of small businesses, legacy aerospace firms, university partners, and foreign space operation organizations, in “32 states, 50 Congressional districts,”
50 congressional districts, now why does that make me shudder, does that mean it will be the autopick for the program?
It means they understand the degree to which politics intrudes in decision making at NASA. They want to be sure that those voting (or trying to influence the choice) know where their suppliers are located.
Decision making in Congress not NASA. Does that mean SNC is going to add a layer of extra workers so every district has some make work adding to costs? Then they get picked and it is just more of the same ole same ole rather than what might be best for the taxpayer and the Nation.
It was my hope that commercial crew could cut through that not add to it.
I doubt that SNC is adding operations themselves. They are pointing out where their suppliers are located.
SLS exists because of politics. NASA didn’t want it and did their best to drag their heels on it for some time.
I must say I do not share the optimism embodied by the hope you express. If NASA had their way, they’d fund them all. It’s Congress forcing the downselect. Politics has already intruded.
The DC team has been VERY clever about getting a very broad base of support (including international partners). If NASA is forced to pick just one Commercial Crew provider and doesn’t select DC, it’s possible that the ESA will pick them up for crew launches. The ESA might do that anyway.
alternatively, if NASA does select only DC as a Commercial Crew provider, we know that SpaceX will continue on their own. they have their own ambitions they are striving to achieve.
Either option has both continuing to work on their vehicles. we all know that Boeing would most likely stop work on CST if they are not selected as a Commercial Crew provider.
For a launch on Ariane? A return to Hermes?
Yes, probably Ariane 5
from the articles i’ve read about it, DC may get some parts sourced from Europe, so maybe bits of Hermes :p
The painful thing is that this reasoning is almost certainly being used to lobby for a down-select to CST-100. “It’s the only way to keep all three, in some form!”
(A kind of Gresham’s law for funding. “The contractor who invests the least of their own money will get the contract.”)
i’m sure Boeing will try to angle it that way. unfortunately the CST is the least imaginative design and likely the least cost-effective of the 3. both of which are probably selling points for some members of congress.
I am still not digging the nose landing gear skid.
it is a simple, light, safe option. They also added that there had been some issues with the analysis of the performance of tires in the space environment and this eliminates one of the tires – with the other two tires easier to control than the nose wheel if there’s a problem with one of them.
The performance of tires/wheels in a space environment has its own history and is well studied and understood. Used on the Space Shuttle for 30yrs and the X-37B both have had some problems but are well understood.
Wheels make poor brakes. A skid makes a natural brake.
It’s probably best to have more braking force on the rear contact points. This naturally keeps the nose pointed forward. I’m not sure how this works out with a skid on the front, and wheels on the rear. The X-15 had skids on the rear and wheel at front, so there was more braking coming from the rear.
I’m just talking though. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.
Let’s not forget about Blue Origin. It would not surprise me if they came to the table in 2016 with their own offering. While they are not using NASA funds to any real degree, they are building a vehicle that might be able to do the job as well. Some like SpaceX and SNC are playing the politics game well, while others like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic seem to be content on doing it basically on their own. Either way, there are enough players in this field now that it is really exciting to watch.
Blue received from NASA, under the commercial crew program: $3.7 million in 2010 and $22 million in 2011. Bezos has invested an estimated $500 million of his own money. Its been several months since the last news release of the BE-3 engine test.
Correct me if I’m wrong however BO haven’t stepped up to the orbital plate yet which leaves them so far well out of consideration. Sure they’ve got an interesting engine but going from sub-orbital to orbital is a whole new world.
Cheers
That vehicle has been flying for years, albeit under a different name.
no, it has not.
How is this tech different from the Air Force’s ‘mini-shuttle’, as it’s called in the press?
It’s larger. It carries crew. It is capable of docking with the ISS. It launches without a payload shroud. It has a LAS. It has less on-orbit duration. Its missions won’t be secret.
OK. The question wasn’t meant to diminish the vehicle, only to understand how this vehicle is different. It’s a lifting body (well understood). It’s bigger. No shroud. All incremental improvements, to be sure. LAS?
Looks cool, too.
I apologise if I came across as snippy. I was going for pithy not bitchy.
LAS or LES = Launch abort/escape system. In the case of DC, pusher-type solid boosters on the interstage fairing, if it uses the HL-20 system.
http://space.stackexchange….
[Assuming that’s what you were asking.]
Not really. It’s a quite different design. The two vehicles have quite different intents, so the designs seem pretty distinct, even if they are both “spaceplanes”. For example, X-37 is more of a “plane” when it flies, closer to the shuttle, DC is a nearly pure lifting body.
“It has less on-orbit duration.”
I was technically wrong here (the best kind of wrong). Apparently the total time-on-orbit is pretty close (over 200 days). But the DC is intended to be docked with the ISS for the bulk of its time in space, life-support will be something like a week. Whereas X-37 is independent for its full 280 days, but then it doesn’t need life-support.
The first NASA operational crew mission is Nov. ’17. They will be still test flying. So they will not be able to make the first flight. No crew in ’16, then a whole year till the crewed flight. Hopefully it will always be in range of a runway. I suppose, like Shuttle, they might be able to bail out at certain speed and altitude. A ditch would tear DC apart. There is no mention of parachutes for DC for abort, to let it down whole. The TPS has been approved by NASA. I hope it works.
Why would it need parachutes in an abort? it’s a lifting body aircraft, it can glide to a landing.
I’ll just play devil’s advocate.
In an abort like Saturn13 said, it might not have enough altitude to prepare for a glide landing, because lifting bodies need a lot more room, speed, etc. X-38 used a parachute to land even nominally. There must have been reasons…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Oh I also saw this about the HL-20 from Paul’s link below-
If it hasn’t gotten high enough to glide to a landing, then it probably won’t have achieved enough altitude to have gotten clear of an exploding rocket.
most pad abort scenarios reach altitudes of 1 1/2 to 2 miles. if DC can’t glide to a runway landing from that altitude, then it’s got a lot more problems than can be addressed here.
the intended use of the X-38, as a vehicle for emergency evacuation of the ISS, means that it would have had to assume that there would be no convenient airport to land at. the parafoil was a design feature.
the Dream Chaser is slightly larger than the HL-20 and uses a different means of launch abort. the “initial” and “original” plans for HL-20 abort scenarios are likely to be very different than those of the Dream Chaser, due to the differences in design.
1. Disagree. I’ve watched a few exploding rocket videos and they don’t always go up very high. 🙂 it just has to accelerate away faster than exploding debris, which will mostly be slowing down after initial explosion unless there is an intact solid booster or something (will DC configured Atlas V include solids?)
2. Ok, does the DC abort motor send it up that 1.5-2 miles? Are you sure that’s enough to give it time to line up with a runway? Shuttle had a 20 degree glideslope for most of its landing profile. DC is going to be steeper, right, and I’m not sure if they’ll be using the abort motor for just flying up or also as part of the maneuvering.
3. My reference on the X-38 mentioned why it used a parafoil, for safer landing. You asked why a lifting body would need a parachute and there’s one answer. It also makes sense if there is an abort early and it doesn’t have much margin for lining up a runway- i’ll have to read up on DC abort scenarios.
Ah, the 3rd page here has diagrams showing a pad abort of HL-20 from Pad 39A to Runway 13. It gets up to about 2 miles in altitude.
http://www.researchgate.net…
Abort scenarios are not based on watching exploding rocket videos. They are based on the worst possible case scenario – which is that all of the rocket’s fuel is converted to energy all at once. Launch abort systems must be designed around avoiding that. Not only do they have to avoid the blast, but they also have to avoid debris blasted vertically, as you mention. Getting enough altitude to avoid an errant SRB is a good case to consider. You do not want the bare minimum of acceleration that avoids the blast. You want to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Not only do you have to avoid blast and debris, but also you want to get away from the epicenter of the explosion, so launch abort systems must get you both up and away. At minimum, you probably want your launch escape system to get you a mile vertically and a mile away from the blast.
the DC abort motors are its onboard rocket engines, which normally would be used for orbital maneuvers and its deorbit burn (this is the major difference between the HL-20 and the DC. the HL-20 would have used a rocket pack on its rocket adapter for launch abort). there should be more than enough in the DC engines to get 1 1/2 to 2 miles altitude, which yes, should be more than enough altitude for it to maneuver to the runway, and if it can’t, then the DC is not worth wasting any more time on. keep in mind they are only going to be launching at Canaveral, which has the Shuttle landing strip for it to land on.
no – i asked why the DC would need a parachute. the DC has more lifting surface than the X-38 and it is capable of gliding to a runway landing, when the X-38 was designed to ditch from the ISS and land anywhere. they are not the same vehicle. again, i think that if the margins are that slim then DC isn’t worth pursuing as a spacecraft.
Doug, I agree with pretty much everything you said there. I’ll tone down the devil’s advocate I guess. Yes, they have to plan for worst case so not all exploding rocket videos apply 🙂 We should have said this a few comments ago. It seems from the HL-20 info, that craft would have enough time/altitude from 2 miles to land on the runway at KSC (not sure why I see it called 13 in the HL-20 docs as it’s 33 or 15). I wonder how far away exactly they’d be able to make it to. Probably with the DC using its own rocket engines, they’ll have waayyy more range, especially since they can fly powered for a while which would be interesting.
Good info about the comparison to the X-38. Those are things I didn’t know (besides knowing they weren’t the same). The things I quoted just referred to “lifting bodies” but yeah there can obviously be differences, so the source text was being imprecise.