NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program
Development of the Dream Chaser has been supported by internal SNC funding, a non-reimburseable NASA Space Act Agreement (SAA), and two funded NASA SAA’s through the Commercial Crew Development Program (CCDev).
In 2010, SNC was awarded $20 million as a part of the first CCDev SAA. SNC completed the four planned milestones on time which included program implementation plans, manufacturing readiness capability, hybrid rocket test fires, and the prelimary structure design. Further initial Dream Chaser tests included the drop test of a 15% scaled version at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The 5 foot long model was dropped from 14,000 ft. to test flight stability and collect aerodynamic data for flight control surfaces.
The second SAA under the CCDev 2 Program awarded SNC with $80 million in May 2011. Since then, nearly a dozen further milestones have been completed. Some of these milestones included testing of the airfoil fin shape, integrated flight software and hardware, landing gear, and a full scale captive carry flight test. The Dream Chaser is on track for operational commercial human flight capability as early as 2016.
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