The Sierra Space Tenacity spaceplane should have its first flight in 2024. It is compatible with a wide variety of launch vehicles (rockets) and will be launched in a stowed configuration inside a payload fairing. This makes Tenacity significantly more flexible and reduces ascent loads on the vehicle compared to the space shuttle. Dream Chaser is a mini shuttle. It will bring back the capability of returning experiments and equipment from the International Space Station (ISS) through Earth’s atmosphere for an eventual runway landing.
With Tenacity in a payload fairing, it will sit on top of the rocket which will help protect the vehicle from debris. Sierra Space’s DC-200 crewed spaceplane variant will be launched in a similar configuration but without a fairing, which will still offer protection from debris since the rocket will be located below the vehicle.
The Tenacity can return critical cargo to Earth at less than 1.5 g’s, contributing to a gentle and safe landing for the craft and its potential crew.
The vehicle is covered with more than two thousand individual tiles versus 24,000 tiles for the old space shuttle.
Tenacity and future Dream Chaser cargo missions to the ISS will fly under the Commercial Resupply Services-2 round of NASA contracts. Sierra Space would be the third and final company to fly under this contract. Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus resupply vehicle along with SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon v2 complete the contract. Dream Chaser is expected to provide a minimum of seven uncrewed cargo missions under this contract.
United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) newest vehicle, Vulcan, will fly the Dream Chaser. The first Vulcan rocket is expected to launch Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon, with the Dream Chaser Demo-1 flight currently scheduled to fly aboard the rocket’s second flight. ULA CEO Tory Bruno currently says the debut flight of Vulcan is targeting Q4 2023 with Tenacity flying in 2024.
Old Space Shuttle payloads weighed up to 27,500 kilograms (60,600 pounds) in low-Earth orbit missions. The Tenacity spaceplane and the Sierra Space’s Shooting Star™ service module can deliver 5,500 kilograms (up to 12,000 pounds) of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the space station before returning to Earth. It can use internally developed thrusters with three different thrust modes, it can nimbly maneuver in space and ensure deliveries are effectively completed.
Although this payload is smaller, the spaceplane is highly customizable for a range of applications. The Tenacity is a multi-mission vehicle that can provide faster turnarounds and handle more lifetime loads.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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It sounds a bit like a rah-rah advertisement, but the sentiments are well placed. Having a space plane like the retired NASA Space Shuttle (albeit smaller, at ⅕ the mass) will have its applications.
I get the impression — because of the repetition of the idea that it will be a ‘gentle’ ride — that the current person transport of pods is a rough ticket. Shoot ’em up (no difference, right? Big ol’ rocket under your seat to shoot you up there…) and then fill ’em up with people and results-of-experiments (and bags of pooh?) and de-orbit them ‘gently’. Which I gather means letting aerobraking in the atmosphere drain off all the kinetic energy of orbit in its brilliant glory. The rock (ahem, space plane) coasts back, lines up, and has a single chance at sticking the landing. ONE. Remember that.
IF it lands too hard, the wheels fall off. Its something of a PR disaster.
IF it comes in too hot, then the tires burn off. Another PR disaster.
But you know, the ‘old’ retired Space Shuttle ‘stuck the landing’ every time.
And it had nothing more sophisticated than hand-calculator computing on board.
LOL… I made up that last bit.
Nah, there’s nothing really to worry about. The physics is surprisingly simple, once the density-temperature gradient of the exosphere-to-the-landing-strip is well worked out. It is a glider. We’ve been landing gliders for, like, forever.
And being a ceramic wonder, nothing is really ‘burning off’ compared to the ablative shield(s) of the present day pods. Oh, like the retired Shuttle, it most certainly will show a lot of signs of that aerobraking as ‘paint charring’. Very Star Wars space-plane apparel! Wafts of smoke and everything steam-punky.
Very positive, this. I like it. No surprise, also liked the Old Space Shuttle too. A most magnificent — if also highly maligned publicly — machine. WAY too expensive in operating costs. But leave that to NASA as opposed to MUSK. They invented fifty-thousand dollar monkey wrenches and hundred-thousand dollar toilet seats. NASA. Where money happily goes to die.
A million-plus subcontractors have their incomes firmly attached to that enormous sow of a budget. Divide 20 billion by a million, and there isn’t much in the end per person. Well … the multiplier effect (you know, when you pay your accountant to do your taxes, it becomes her income, and so on) certainly bolsters the actual economics component in GDP.
Go space plane, Go!
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
More BOR planform
Commercial version of a X-37 OTV. Or Yuanzheng-1
Cool, now that would be a good space ride.