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The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS

54 points by Anon84 2y ago

AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
Dream Chaser has been a bit of a joke in the aerospace circles I inhabit. It has crushed far more dreams than it has successfully chased... Sierra is possibly one of the worst, most broken aerospace companies to work for in existence, likely number two behind Boeing. If you want to feel good about your job, go read their glassdoor reviews.
lostemptations5 2y ago
It's cool finally to see another space plane in orbit aside from the X-37.
- st_goliath 2y ago
  Well, there already are other, operational space planes besides the X-37B. Namely the Shenlong[1] (3 success full missions) and the CSSHQ[2], the later being currently in orbit (3rd mission, launched in December 2023). But we don't know that much about those either, as they are kept in just as much secrecy as the X-37B. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenlong_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenlong_(spacecraft) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_reusable_experimental_spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_reusable_experimental_...
  - schiffern 2y ago
    Based on photos of the fairing, the Chinese spaceplane is believed to be more or less a duplicate of the American X-37B. https://universemagazine.com/en/space-debris-told-about-the-secret-chinese-spaceplane/ https://universemagazine.com/en/space-debris-told-about-the-...
weebull 2y ago
> With its perpetually upturned pectoral fins, and blunt nose, the Dream Chaser looks more like a killer whale than a spacecraft. Hard disagree. It definitely looks like a space craft.
- krisoft 2y ago
  Yeah. That is a weird comment in the article. Like have these people not heard of the space shuttle? It looks like a chibi version of the shuttle.
  - rvnx 2y ago
    Crazy to imagine that we lost all these technologies. 60 years ago we could have a phone call to the moon, we had a space shuttle, etc, and now struggling just to get a small copy reaching the ISS. Same with Concorde :/
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      Part of a well functioning economy is to divert resources from unproductive activities. Maintaining technologies that don't support real demand is unproductive. It's sad when a technology that no longer "works" is abandoned, just like it's sad when (spoiler) Old Yeller has to be put down. That doesn't mean it's wrong.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      Whenever you think like this, it's useful to look into how modern efforts differ in more detail. Concorde was very loud and very fuel inefficient in an industry where efficiency is king, the modern struggle is not in achieving supersonic flight, but in doing it efficiently and quietly. Similarly, the space shuttle was iconic, but more recent safety analyses have shown that it was a miracle only 2 launches resulted in total loss of crew, as initially it had a 1 in 9 chance of failure, later missions getting to 1 in 90. In comparison, all current human rated vehicles have to do better than 1 in 270. The Shuttle was also horrendously expensive, reusable in name only, and was limited heavily by requirements for it to be able to do certain things that it never actually ended up doing. Dreamchaser is supposed to be commercially viable, it can't burn billions per launch. Similarly, with going to the Moon. We want to do more than just an Apollo style moonshot and establish a sustainable long term presence there (well, NASA wants to do more than that, Congress seems to just want to give money to Boeing), so now we have to make giant, spacious sci-fi-esque landers/bases that refuel in orbit before heading off.
transfire 2y ago
I watched the original Six Million Dollar Man movie the other day. To my surprise Steve Austin crashed the original Dream Chaser prototype!!! I was dumbfounded. We’ve had this design for 50 years! What has taken so long?
- ben_w 2y ago
  The M2-F2 and HL-10 lifting body designs? There's only so many basic shapes that actually work, this isn't like sci-fi where we can make interesting swooshy bits that look cool and have it still function. So we've got capsules for no-glide landings, and things that look like a plane for use-cases that do want to glide during landing. We're not going to get something that looks like an Eagle from Space: 1999 unless someone figures out a form of propulsion that's not dependent on the rocket equation or aerodynamics, such as pushing directly against the Earth's magnetic field or something.
  - stoneman24 2y ago
    We also had the mustard space plane, back in the 60’s. The idea/sketch is one thing but the actual engineering and funding is something else. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_Mustard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_Mustard
    - KennyBlanken 2y ago
      Please stop linking to the mobile version of wikipedia.
dvh 2y ago
Reminds me of an old joke: how to make a space shuttle? Take a rocket, add wings and 2 million parts.
K0balt 2y ago
It is not preparing to visit the ISS. It is preparing for its first actual flight, since so far the closest it’s gotten to an actual flight is being dropped from a helicopter from about 3700 meters. It crash-landed when one of its landing wheels failed to deploy correctly. I love the idea of private aerospace, but we need to be realistic about the complexity and difficulty of trans-atmospheric / gravitationally dominated ballistic flight as an endeavour. This spacecraft may very well become a safe, economical option for short haul cargo and crew missions to and from earth to orbit… but let’s not breathlessly declare that it’s preparing to visit the ISS when we haven’t even burned any of them up yet testing the reentry capability of this adorable cessna-sized space minivan. It’s not a good look for companies in the aerospace segment to wildly overstate their operational capabilities, and if that’s what is needed to attract investment, maybe we should figure out a better way.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  For starters, the test you mentioned happened in 2013, after making improvements, they successfully redid that test in 2017. Visiting the ISS does not involve the reentry capability, and being a test flight, on the journey back, they won't be attempting to bring down any cargo they can't afford to lose. They're saying it's preparing to visit the ISS because that literally is the objective of the first test flight. Maybe they've pulled a Boeing and it has too many issues to make it there, but the only way to find out is to actually launch it and attempt to head there and back. As for carrying crew, that's still far away, they don't have a commercial crew contract from NASA, and are instead working with Blue Origin to provide transportation to their commercial space station. Given Blue's rate of getting things done so far, this is probably going to materialize well into the 2030s, if it materializes at all.
blinding-streak 2y ago
https://archive.ph/A6yfR https://archive.ph/A6yfR
Boitto 2y ago
I could have sworn that this aerodynamics wouldn't work
ramesh31 2y ago
This would be a perfect Starship payload. I don't buy that human beings will ever reenter earth's atmosphere in Starship and land propulsively. There is simply too much safety advantage in an aerodynamically landable aircraft or parachute capsule to do it any other way.
- phkahler 2y ago
  Falcon 9 has a landings are more reliable now than space shuttle launches. I'm not sure how the Starship flip would make people feel.
  - ramesh31 2y ago
    You cannot compare the suborbital booster return to an oribital reentry, they are two completely different things. No SpaceX vehicle but Crew Dragon (a capsule) has ever returned astronauts from space, and I suspect it will be the only solution for a long time to come.
    - phkahler 2y ago
      >> You cannot compare the suborbital booster return to an oribital reentry, they are two completely different things. Agreed, but I expect Starship to be doing the same in a few years.
  - avmich 2y ago
    I do think that if we'd make Shuttle today, it would be much more reliable than it was. Successes of vertical Falcon-9 landings notwithstanding.
- avmich 2y ago
  Mostly agree. Winged design can be much gentler for passing the atmosphere on the way back comparing to capsules and can probably even get passively to landing speed, the drawback being the requirements of the landing strip. They are also better to control, both with choosing the place to land and even with ability of having atmospheric engines, which would get them close to aircrafts in handling landing.
avmich 2y ago
It's interesting to see so much similarity with BOR-4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOR-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOR-4 and http://buran.ru/htm/bors.htm http://buran.ru/htm/bors.htm), particularly foldable wings. Surely DC is bigger and much more polished, but it's still reminding of the past programs.
- icegreentea2 2y ago
  It's not explicitly clear (in english) from your links, but there is true design lineage from BOR to Dreamchaser. The HL-20 mold line was derived from spy plane imagery of BOR-4, and HL-20 was then the design basis for Dreamchaser. https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/vab/vab-projects/hl-20/ https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/vab/vab-projects/hl-20/
  - avmich 2y ago
    There's a long chain of influences across the border in winged spacecraft development. Dyna-Soar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar) project in USA pushed works on Spiral' project in USSR, and BORs are a part of that. It arguably provides a link from HL-10 via USSR projects to HL-20, among other things.
Animats 2y ago
Space-X has now completed 30 cargo trips to the ISS, and 8 crewed trips. Meanwhile, the ULA Starliner launch that was supposed to happen early this week has been delayed until at least late May.[1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/05/18/1252311564/nasa-boeing-starliner-launch-delayed-international-space-station https://www.npr.org/2024/05/18/1252311564/nasa-boeing-starli...
- trollerator23 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - adventured 2y ago
    Of course it is, in part. The article repeatedly mentions SpaceX, because they're the primary competitor for resupply missions. As such Dream Chaser has to be judged against that competition. Discussing SpaceX as it relates to competing with Dream Chaser, makes perfect sense given the context.

54 points by Anon84 2y ago

Dream Chaser has been a bit of a joke in the aerospace circles I inhabit. It has crushed far more dreams than it has successfully chased... Sierra is possibly one of the worst, most broken aerospace companies to work for in existence, likely number two behind Boeing. If you want to feel good about your job, go read their glassdoor reviews.

lostemptations5 2y ago

It's cool finally to see another space plane in orbit aside from the X-37.

st_goliath 2y ago
Well, there already are other, operational space planes besides the X-37B. Namely the Shenlong[1] (3 success full missions) and the CSSHQ[2], the later being currently in orbit (3rd mission, launched in December 2023). But we don't know that much about those either, as they are kept in just as much secrecy as the X-37B. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenlong_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenlong_(spacecraft) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_reusable_experimental_spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_reusable_experimental_...
- schiffern 2y ago
  Based on photos of the fairing, the Chinese spaceplane is believed to be more or less a duplicate of the American X-37B. https://universemagazine.com/en/space-debris-told-about-the-secret-chinese-spaceplane/ https://universemagazine.com/en/space-debris-told-about-the-...

weebull 2y ago

> With its perpetually upturned pectoral fins, and blunt nose, the Dream Chaser looks more like a killer whale than a spacecraft. Hard disagree. It definitely looks like a space craft.

krisoft 2y ago
Yeah. That is a weird comment in the article. Like have these people not heard of the space shuttle? It looks like a chibi version of the shuttle.
- rvnx 2y ago
  Crazy to imagine that we lost all these technologies. 60 years ago we could have a phone call to the moon, we had a space shuttle, etc, and now struggling just to get a small copy reaching the ISS. Same with Concorde :/
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Part of a well functioning economy is to divert resources from unproductive activities. Maintaining technologies that don't support real demand is unproductive. It's sad when a technology that no longer "works" is abandoned, just like it's sad when (spoiler) Old Yeller has to be put down. That doesn't mean it's wrong.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    Whenever you think like this, it's useful to look into how modern efforts differ in more detail. Concorde was very loud and very fuel inefficient in an industry where efficiency is king, the modern struggle is not in achieving supersonic flight, but in doing it efficiently and quietly. Similarly, the space shuttle was iconic, but more recent safety analyses have shown that it was a miracle only 2 launches resulted in total loss of crew, as initially it had a 1 in 9 chance of failure, later missions getting to 1 in 90. In comparison, all current human rated vehicles have to do better than 1 in 270. The Shuttle was also horrendously expensive, reusable in name only, and was limited heavily by requirements for it to be able to do certain things that it never actually ended up doing. Dreamchaser is supposed to be commercially viable, it can't burn billions per launch. Similarly, with going to the Moon. We want to do more than just an Apollo style moonshot and establish a sustainable long term presence there (well, NASA wants to do more than that, Congress seems to just want to give money to Boeing), so now we have to make giant, spacious sci-fi-esque landers/bases that refuel in orbit before heading off.

transfire 2y ago

I watched the original Six Million Dollar Man movie the other day. To my surprise Steve Austin crashed the original Dream Chaser prototype!!! I was dumbfounded. We’ve had this design for 50 years! What has taken so long?

ben_w 2y ago
The M2-F2 and HL-10 lifting body designs? There's only so many basic shapes that actually work, this isn't like sci-fi where we can make interesting swooshy bits that look cool and have it still function. So we've got capsules for no-glide landings, and things that look like a plane for use-cases that do want to glide during landing. We're not going to get something that looks like an Eagle from Space: 1999 unless someone figures out a form of propulsion that's not dependent on the rocket equation or aerodynamics, such as pushing directly against the Earth's magnetic field or something.
- stoneman24 2y ago
  We also had the mustard space plane, back in the 60’s. The idea/sketch is one thing but the actual engineering and funding is something else. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_Mustard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_Mustard
  - KennyBlanken 2y ago
    Please stop linking to the mobile version of wikipedia.

dvh 2y ago

Reminds me of an old joke: how to make a space shuttle? Take a rocket, add wings and 2 million parts.

K0balt 2y ago

It is not preparing to visit the ISS. It is preparing for its first actual flight, since so far the closest it’s gotten to an actual flight is being dropped from a helicopter from about 3700 meters. It crash-landed when one of its landing wheels failed to deploy correctly. I love the idea of private aerospace, but we need to be realistic about the complexity and difficulty of trans-atmospheric / gravitationally dominated ballistic flight as an endeavour. This spacecraft may very well become a safe, economical option for short haul cargo and crew missions to and from earth to orbit… but let’s not breathlessly declare that it’s preparing to visit the ISS when we haven’t even burned any of them up yet testing the reentry capability of this adorable cessna-sized space minivan. It’s not a good look for companies in the aerospace segment to wildly overstate their operational capabilities, and if that’s what is needed to attract investment, maybe we should figure out a better way.

dotnet00 2y ago
For starters, the test you mentioned happened in 2013, after making improvements, they successfully redid that test in 2017. Visiting the ISS does not involve the reentry capability, and being a test flight, on the journey back, they won't be attempting to bring down any cargo they can't afford to lose. They're saying it's preparing to visit the ISS because that literally is the objective of the first test flight. Maybe they've pulled a Boeing and it has too many issues to make it there, but the only way to find out is to actually launch it and attempt to head there and back. As for carrying crew, that's still far away, they don't have a commercial crew contract from NASA, and are instead working with Blue Origin to provide transportation to their commercial space station. Given Blue's rate of getting things done so far, this is probably going to materialize well into the 2030s, if it materializes at all.

blinding-streak 2y ago

https://archive.ph/A6yfR https://archive.ph/A6yfR

Boitto 2y ago

I could have sworn that this aerodynamics wouldn't work

ramesh31 2y ago

This would be a perfect Starship payload. I don't buy that human beings will ever reenter earth's atmosphere in Starship and land propulsively. There is simply too much safety advantage in an aerodynamically landable aircraft or parachute capsule to do it any other way.

phkahler 2y ago
Falcon 9 has a landings are more reliable now than space shuttle launches. I'm not sure how the Starship flip would make people feel.
- ramesh31 2y ago
  You cannot compare the suborbital booster return to an oribital reentry, they are two completely different things. No SpaceX vehicle but Crew Dragon (a capsule) has ever returned astronauts from space, and I suspect it will be the only solution for a long time to come.
  - phkahler 2y ago
    >> You cannot compare the suborbital booster return to an oribital reentry, they are two completely different things. Agreed, but I expect Starship to be doing the same in a few years.
- avmich 2y ago
  I do think that if we'd make Shuttle today, it would be much more reliable than it was. Successes of vertical Falcon-9 landings notwithstanding.
avmich 2y ago
Mostly agree. Winged design can be much gentler for passing the atmosphere on the way back comparing to capsules and can probably even get passively to landing speed, the drawback being the requirements of the landing strip. They are also better to control, both with choosing the place to land and even with ability of having atmospheric engines, which would get them close to aircrafts in handling landing.

avmich 2y ago

It's interesting to see so much similarity with BOR-4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOR-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOR-4 and http://buran.ru/htm/bors.htm http://buran.ru/htm/bors.htm), particularly foldable wings. Surely DC is bigger and much more polished, but it's still reminding of the past programs.

icegreentea2 2y ago
It's not explicitly clear (in english) from your links, but there is true design lineage from BOR to Dreamchaser. The HL-20 mold line was derived from spy plane imagery of BOR-4, and HL-20 was then the design basis for Dreamchaser. https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/vab/vab-projects/hl-20/ https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/vab/vab-projects/hl-20/
- avmich 2y ago
  There's a long chain of influences across the border in winged spacecraft development. Dyna-Soar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar) project in USA pushed works on Spiral' project in USSR, and BORs are a part of that. It arguably provides a link from HL-10 via USSR projects to HL-20, among other things.

Animats 2y ago

Space-X has now completed 30 cargo trips to the ISS, and 8 crewed trips. Meanwhile, the ULA Starliner launch that was supposed to happen early this week has been delayed until at least late May.[1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/05/18/1252311564/nasa-boeing-starliner-launch-delayed-international-space-station https://www.npr.org/2024/05/18/1252311564/nasa-boeing-starli...

trollerator23 2y ago
[flagged]
- adventured 2y ago
  Of course it is, in part. The article repeatedly mentions SpaceX, because they're the primary competitor for resupply missions. As such Dream Chaser has to be judged against that competition. Discussing SpaceX as it relates to competing with Dream Chaser, makes perfect sense given the context.