While Sierra Nevada Corp (SNC) was still smarting over losing out to Boeing and SpaceX for NASA’s commercial crew transportation contracts, NASA is throwing its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle a life line. Now teamed with Lockheed Martin, SNC is being allowed to bid for the Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract with an unmanned folding wing version of its Dream Chaser space plane called the Dream Chaser Cargo System. The craft can fit into 5m Atlas and Delta rocket fairings and even those of other launch vehicles including Ariane 5.
The Dream Chaser Cargo variant can carry both pressurised and unpressurised cargo into orbit, probably to the International Space Station, and in being a winged/lifting body it can return cargo to Earth in a low “g” environment.
