Space Planes

Sweet Home Alabama: Dream Chaser Aims for Huntsville Landings

Sweet Home Alabama: Dream Chaser Aims for Huntsville Landings

The “Rocket City” may be taking a big step in seeing some of its storied history coming home, literally, in the form of a descending Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser space plane. Yesterday, officials in Huntsville, Al held an industry session to promote Dream Chaser landings in the city that helped launch America into the space […]

SNC To Resume Testing Dream Chaser in 2016

SNC To Resume Testing Dream Chaser in 2016

Last week, we reported that Lockheed Martin has apparently been quietly eliminated from NASA’s CRS-2 resupply contract competition, speculating that it could be a development which opened the crack a little wider for Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser space plane. The following press release from SNC does nothing to dispel that line of thought. Sierra […]

Air-Launched Rocket Projects Ready to Soar

Air-Launched Rocket Projects Ready to Soar

The prospects for air-launched, lower cost access to space appear to be soaring higher all the time. On July 27th, a defense contracts notification website reported that Boeing has received a contract modification for its Experimental Spaceplane, XS-1 award. Managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the XS-1 program is seeking to […]

Airbus Patents a Plane Fit for the Space Age

Airbus Patents a Plane Fit for the Space Age

Among the long list of major miseries and minor annoyances which come with air travel in the current era is this one supremely irritating fact; once you finally get into the air, you are not travelling one bit faster than a passenger first boarding a Boeing 707 in October, 1958. In fact, in some cases […]

Posted in: Space Planes
XCOR Lynx Space Plane Continues to Take Shape

XCOR Lynx Space Plane Continues to Take Shape

Image Credit XCOR Aerospace Press Release XCOR: One Step Closer to Full Assembly Mojave, CA, May 08, 2015 – XCOR Aerospace, Inc. announced today that it has bonded the XCOR Lynx Mark I strakes to the Lynx spacecraft fuselage. Lynx Mark I is currently being assembled at XCOR’s Hangar 61 in Mojave, California. Integrating the […]

Posted in: Space Planes, XCOR
For Sierra Nevada and Dream Chaser, the Chase Goes On

For Sierra Nevada and Dream Chaser, the Chase Goes On

Image Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation Sierra Nevada Corporation is keeping the “chase” in its Dream Chaser space plane. On March 17th, the company revealed its proposal for an unmanned version of Dream Chaser intended to compete for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services 2, or CRS-2 contract. Unlike the version put forward under NASA’s Commercial Crew program, […]

Keeping the Dream Alive: The Cargo Only Dream Chaser Space Plane

Keeping the Dream Alive: The Cargo Only Dream Chaser Space Plane

One More Time: Dream Chaser / Sierra Nevada Corporation Sierra Nevada Corporation formally introduced the latest variant of its oft proposed but thus far underloved Dream Chaser space plane on Tuesday, March 17th. It is intended to compete for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services 2, (CRS2) contract to serve the International Space Station. Unlike the manned […]

Swiss Space Systems Offers Customers Stock Opportunity

Swiss Space Systems Offers Customers Stock Opportunity

Own it!  : Image Credit / Swiss Space systems Swiss Space Systems has found a rather unique way to offer customers of its parabolic flights the opportunity to become investors. According to the company’s latest newsletter: “We’re offering S3 ZeroG flights at an exceptional price for a flight campaign taking place in Switzerland in the […]

Europe’s IXV Demonstrator Launches, Lands, What Next?

Europe’s IXV Demonstrator Launches, Lands, What Next?

Europe’s IXV, or Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, a small re-entry test vehicle, launched this morning aboard a Vega booster from the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff, in what was the fourth flight of the three stage solid fueled Vega small launch vehicle, occurred at 13:30 GMT.   After reaching a maximum altitude of 412 […]

Posted in: Space Planes
GAO Denies SNC Dream Chaser Protest

GAO Denies SNC Dream Chaser Protest

Dream Deferred: Image Credit SNC The New Year did not bring good news for Sierra Nevada and its Dream Chaser space plane. As most expected would be the case, the GAO notified SNC that it is denying the company’s protest over NASA’s Commercial Crew award to Boeing and SpaceX. GAO said in part: “In making […]

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