Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser is one step closer to its long-awaited maiden flight by turning on its systems during a key test. On May 31, the company announced that it had launched a spaceplane for the first time at its assembly facility, which would power the vehicle with solar panels it will produce in space and run on-board computers and other components. to spacenews.com.

“This is a future milestone and an important moment in a long journey for Dream Chaser,” said Tom Vice, CEO of Sierra Space.

Tests are under way as the company prepares to ship the first Dream Chaser, called Tenacity, to NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Center, the former Plum Brook Station in Ohio. There, the spacecraft will undergo thermal vacuum tests before being sent to Cape Canaveral for final preparations for launch.

Sierra Space did not disclose the timeline for these phases in its capacity test announcement. Speaking during a discussion about 38^with At the space symposium in April, Janet Cavandi, president of Sierra Space, said the Dream Chaser will be sent to the test center “within the July deadline.”

He said the vehicle would be tested there for several months before being shipped to Florida. “We should be ready to launch by the end of this year,” he said of Dream Chaser’s launch plans.

This program will depend not only on Dream Chaser’s readiness, but also on the International Space Station mission statement and the status of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. Dream Chaser is scheduled to launch as part of Vulcan’s second mission after the launch of Astrobotic’s lunar lander, which was delayed later this summer due to problems in launch vehicle testing.

In preparation for this launch, NASA astronaut Jasmine Mogbeli and JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa recently trained on Dream Chaser’s systems, including cargo transfer between the spacecraft and the ISS. Mogbeli and Furukawa were assigned to the Crew-7 mission, which is scheduled to launch into the station in mid-August and will remain there until February 2024.

Dream Chaser will initially be used to transport cargo to and from the ISS under a commercial supply contract with NASA. But Sierra Space is planning other uses for the vehicle, including a crewed version. Kavanadi said at the conference that this variant of the DC-200 will be slightly larger and have a slightly different exterior shape.

In preparation for these future crewed flights, Sierra Space plans to recruit its own professional astronaut corps. “We’re going to do this after the first successful Dream Chaser landing,” he said with an initial group of 12 to 15 people.

These astronauts will be trained at a facility the company has set up in Florida, which will also be used to train researchers and other private astronauts planning to go to the Orbital Reef. others. companies.