Dream Chaser Space Plane

Sierra Nevada and Stratolaunch team up on Dream Chaser Space Plane. Image © SNC artist’s concept

Dream Chaser mini-shuttle space plane by Sierra Nevada Corp., may have lost out in NASA’s space taxi competition, but the company is still having plans for the future of space flights.

The company just announced that it would offer the Dream Chaser as a “winged spaceship for customers around the world.”

Credit SNC

Sierra Nevada says it has designed a launch system for low Earth orbit, or LEO, that combines a scale version of the Dream Chaser with the Stratolaunch super-airplane that’s bankrolled by software billionaire Paul Allen.

Chuck Beames, president, Vulcan Aerospace Corp and executive director for Stratolaunch Systems, said:

“Combining a scaled version of SNC’s Dream Chaser with the Stratolaunch air launch system could provide a highly responsive capability with the potential to reach a variety of LEO destinations and return astronauts or payloads to a U.S. runway within 24 hours”