Get ready for space flights! The $1.4 billion Dream Chaser plane will put cargo (and possibly humans) into orbit after passing final tests

By Jonathan Chadwick for Mailonline

12:10 p.m. on May 13, 2024, updated 12:14 p.m. on May 13, 2024

The world’s first commercial spaceplane is finally about to take off.

After more than a decade of development, Sierra Space’s “Dream Chaser” — which can land horizontally on a runway like a traditional airplane — has completed testing.

The craft will make its first trip to the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit later this year, carrying more than 7,800 pounds (3,540 kilograms) of cargo.

Although this first flight will be an unmanned mission, it will eventually carry astronauts to the space station, much like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

Along with SpaceX and Boeing, Sierra Space is one of the companies hired by NASA a decade ago to send people and equipment to the ISS.

What is Dream Chaser?

Dream Chaser is a reusable spacecraft developed by Colorado-based Sierra Space.

The world’s only commercial spaceplane, it is designed to take people and cargo into space (particularly low Earth orbit).

It will make its first trip to the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit later in 2024, after more than a decade of development.

However, only SpaceX has done so, with the other two companies suffering frustrating development delays and costly setbacks.

Boeing’s Starliner was finally scheduled to send astronauts to the ISS last week, before another last-minute delay due to a rocket problem.

Much like its rivals, Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser will carry people and cargo to the ISS in low Earth orbit – although its first launch later this year will only carry cargo.

According to Sierra Space, based in Louisville, Colorado, Dream Chaser has just completed “rigorous” testing at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio.

These include intense vibration and shock tests that simulate launch conditions and exposures to extreme temperatures typical of the space environment.

It will soon be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before its inaugural launch to the ISS.

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“Successfully completing an incredibly rigorous environmental testing campaign in close partnership with NASA is an important milestone and puts Dream Chaser on track for operations later this year,” said Tom Vice, CEO of Sierra Space.

“This is the year we move from rigorous research and development to regular orbital operations and, in doing so, transform how we connect space and Earth.”

No specific date has been revealed for the mission, although some sources say it could take place as soon as next month; MailOnline has contacted Sierra Space for further information.

In 2021, the company secured $1.4 billion for the Dream Chaser project, following an initial $80 million in funding from NASA.

Although the project aims to send professional astronauts into space, the company has not ruled out using Dream Chaser for tourist trips later in the future.

Boeing Starliner launched

December 2019 First flight without a crew. Reached orbit but failed to dock with the ISS

May 2022 Second unmanned flight. Successful docking with the ISS

May 2024? Tentative date for the first crewed flight to the ISS

Dream Chaser must make his journey through space strapped to the top of a rocket, largely because he cannot generate the thrust needed to reach space alone.

But after its journey into space, Dream Chaser will separate from the rocket and spread its wings into the folded position before flying to the ISS and docking there to release its cargo.

Dream Chaser will stay at the space station for approximately 45 days before returning to Earth.

The spacecraft can land as quickly as 11 to 15 hours after departure, although it needs a window of good weather to attempt re-entry.

If all goes as planned, Dream Chaser will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and head to a landing pad at the Kennedy Launch and Landing Center, Florida, in the style of NASA’s retired space shuttle it more than ten years ago.

Sierra Space is one of three companies participating in NASA’s Commercial Crew program, an initiative to transport teams of astronauts to the ISS on behalf of the space agency.

Created in 2011, the program was intended to allow NASA to outsource the development of ships capable of making the journey, rather than having NASA engineers do it themselves.

NASA awarded fixed-price contracts of $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX in 2014, at a time when the United States had to rely on Russian Soyuz rockets to get to the ISS.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the most successful member of the program so far, made its first crewed launch to the ISS in May 2020, using its Crew Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX is expected to conduct its ninth crewed launch to the ISS for NASA this summer – and will carry out several more after that as part of the program.

Boeing, on the other hand, has long had teething problems with its Starliner craft, which was initially supposed to begin crewed flights by 2017.

Even though the ISS is scheduled to be commissioned early in the next decade, NASA has said it still wants to have two competing crewed launch vehicles.