The Worldwide Area Station (ISS) could by no means once more be visited by an area aircraft.
NASA’s area shuttle orbiters have been instrumental in constructing the ISS, and in holding it operational for its first decade; these reusable spacecraft ferried astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost till the fleet was totally retired in 2011. 5 years later, the company opened the door to extra space aircraft meetups, signing a cargo cope with Sierra Area, the Colorado-based firm behind the robotic Dream Chaser car.
That 2016 contract awarded Sierra Area a minimal of seven ISS resupply flights with Dream Chaser and its companion cargo module, known as Shooting Star. Nine years later, however, Dream Chaser has still not reached space — and its cargo deal has just been changed.
“After a thorough evaluation, NASA and Sierra Space have mutually agreed to modify the contract, as the company determined Dream Chaser development is best served by a free flight demonstration, targeted in late 2026,” agency officials said in an emailed statement on Thursday (Sept. 25).
“Sierra Space will continue providing insight to NASA into the development of Dream Chaser, including through the flight demonstration,” they added. “NASA will provide minimal support through the remainder of the development and the flight demonstration. As part of the modification, NASA is no longer obligated for a specific number of resupply missions; however, the agency may order Dream Chaser resupply flights to the space station from Sierra Space following a successful free flight as part of its current contract.”
The timeline is getting a bit tight for possible Dream Chaser ISS missions, given the orbiting lab is scheduled to be deorbited in 2030. However, NASA is encouraging the development of commercial stations in low Earth orbit to fill the void left by the ISS’ impending departure, and it’s possible that Dream Chaser could visit one or more of those in the coming years.
In a different statement released on Thursday, Sierra Space (which spun off from the aerospace firm Sierra Nevada Corp. in 2021) invoked that and other potential use cases for Dream Chaser. Company officials stressed the space plane could still fly a variety of missions down the road, even if the vehicle never makes it to the ISS.
“Dream Chaser represents the future of versatile space transportation and mission flexibility,” Fatih Ozmen, executive chair at Sierra Space, said in the statement.
“This transition supplies distinctive capabilities to fulfill the wants of various mission profiles, together with rising and existential threats and nationwide safety priorities that align with our acceleration into the Protection Tech market,” Ozmen added. “Along with NASA, we’re searching for to protect the distinctive potential of Dream Chaser as a nationwide asset, making certain its readiness for the following period of area innovation.”
Two non-public American firms presently fly robotic resupply missions to the ISS for NASA — SpaceX, with its Dragon capsules, and Northrop Grumman, which makes use of a spacecraft known as Cygnus. The company additionally tapped SpaceX to deorbit the ISS in a managed vogue in 2030, utilizing a modified model of Dragon.
