12 thoughts on “Dream Chaser”

  1. It might not be dead, but it’s certainly in hospice. SSC Demo-1 is now delayed to NET the end of 2026 and will not dock at the ISS, and Sierra’s contracts for seven ISS resupply missions have been canceled.

  2. The Shooting Star cargo module is capable of independent flight and has all sorts of non-Dream Chaser possibilities, with little additional development. As is, it’s similar to Cygnus. At ISS, it could be a new docking adapter, as needed. Or modified into an airlock/ Or, with external fuel tanks, into a service module for some other vehicle. Iirc, it was built for Sierra by Lockheed Martin?

  3. It’s purpose for existing is essentially gone. I doubt it will fly, and if it does, probably only once. No market for it now.
    Sad, it would have been great to see it in operation.
    It’s being left in the dust now; go-slow space development is a dead-end.

      1. Bravo sir Bravo. I was thinking it was the Dream Chaser was a true successor to the Dynasoar. But that title really belongs to the X-37B(s) that have flown several long endurance missions. With the ISS disappearing 2032 there is little for the DreamChaser to do and with Vulcan and New Glenn development so slow it would have to go up on a Falcon 9 or Falcon 9 heavy.

    2. I suspect you are right that Dream Chaser will never fly, just be quietly abandoned sometime next year. If, as rumored, Sierra Space is short of funds, there would be no point in spending even what it would take for a shakedown flight without some guarantee of at least one or two NASA mission orders and those are now quite iffy at best.

      Cargo Dragon and Cygnus can cover what ISS cargo mission demand there will be over the next 4+ years given that both can continue flying on Falcon 9s should the new Antares be further delayed. The Japanese HTV-X can mostly take the place of Dream Chaser at least for cargo upmass delivery.

      I would say the only potential NASA demand for Dream Chaser might be during the last two years of manned ISS operations when it could be flown up empty a time or two to bring back salvaged downmass before ISS decommissioning and de-orbiting.

      Given that Dream Chaser, as currently designed, needs to be grappled and berthed at ISS, there seems little likelihood that it could be used for cargo resupply/downmass return at any of the prospective non-Orbital Reef commercial LEO destinations now in the works. So far as I know, all of those are being designed with ISS-style automated docking ports. Orbital Reef would have had provision for Dream Chaser berthing but it now seems at least as iffy a proposition as Dream Chaser itself.

    2. If the price was right and the Ozmens were willing, sure. But the only reason Blue might want to do that would be if it actually intends to go ahead with Orbital Reef. I don’t think it does.

  5. Couple quick anecdotes:
    One of the things I remember from ISU is reading some technical papers on the Hermes spacecraft, and one of the salient points was that the winglets for the lifting body were causing all kinds of turbulence during the launch as the wake vortices slid down the sides of the rocket. A major engineering issue to deal with.
    When the Goddard NASA Academy did a field trip to JSC, we got to visit the hanger where they were working on the X-34, IIRC. I posed the question “Wasn’t this program canceled?” To which the reply was “we have to verify the components delivered are to spec”. Which was quite perplexing to someone from the business world, where when a project is canceled that’s it. Done. Go work on something else.
    [The same trip we were denied a visit to the Lunar Rock Lab because of that stupid intern (and post-9/11 “security” concerns). Still resent it to this day]
    Didn’t the Dreamchaser originate back in the VSE days? Dang. Talk about a day late and a dollar short…

    1. Yes. “I spent years tiling this ship. Drilling composites and making every detail perfect” is not something to brag about. Build, fly, build again.

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