Development Progress
On 11 October 2010 SNC announced it had achieved two critical milestones for NASA's CCDev program. The first consisted of three successful test firings of a single hybrid rocket motor in one day. The second milestone was the completion of the primary tooling necessary to build the composite structure of the Dream Chaser vehicle.
As of October 2011, Sierra Nevada Corp has completed four of the 13 milestones set out in the CCDev Agreement. The most recent milestones accomplished include: a System Requirements Review, a new cockpit simulator, finalising the tip fin airfoil design and most recently, an Vehicle Avionics Integration Laboratory (VAIL), which will be used to test Dream Chaser computers and electronics in simulated space mission scenarios.
By February of 2012, Sierra Nevada Corporation stated that it had completed the assembly and delivery of the primary structure of the first Dream Chaser flight test vehicle. With this, SNC completed all 11 of its CCDev milestones that were scheduled up to that point. SNC stated in a press release that it was "...on time and on budget."
On 24 April 2012 Sierra Nevada Corporation announced the successful completion of wind tunnel testing of a scale model of the Dream Chaser vehicle.
On 29 May 2012, a captive carry test was conducted near the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, during the test an Erickson Skycrane was used lift the Dream Chaser to better determine its aerodynamic properties. The first drop test of the Dream Chaser vehicle is planned to occur at Edwards Air Force Base later in 2012.
On 12 June 2012 SNC announced the commemoration of its fifth year as a NASA Langley partner in the design and development of Dream Chaser. Together with ULA, the NASA/SNC team performed buffet tests on the Dream Chaser and Atlas V stack. To date, the Langley/SNC team has worked on aerodynamic and aerothermal analysis of Dream Chaser, as well as guidance, navigation and control systems.
On 11 July 2012 SNC announced that they successfully completed testing of the nose landing gear for Dream Chaser. This milestone evaluated the impact to the landing gear during simulated approach and landing tests as well as the impact of future orbital flights. The main landing gear was tested in a similar way in February 2012. The nose gear landing test was the last milestone to be completed before the free flight approach and landing tests scheduled for later in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Dream Chaser
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