Today in the United States, work is in full swing on the creation of new spaceships. Several private companies are implementing their own projects in this area. On August 14, 2019, Sierra Nevada Corporation issued an official press release, according to which the company's cargo space shuttle will go into space for the first time in 2021. It is planned to use the Vulcan launch vehicle as a launch vehicle. The main difference between the new Dream Chaser spaceplane from the Shuttle and the Soviet Buran will be folding wings, which will allow the spacecraft to be launched inside the nose fairing of the launch vehicle.
Initially, the new Dream Chaser spaceplane was developed in a manned version. With the help of the shuttle, the Americans expected to deliver their astronauts on board the ISS. But after the accident on the first flight in 2013 in September of the following year, the project did not receive the necessary funding from NASA, dropping out of the number of participants in the Commercial Crew Program competition, contracts for which went to SpaceX and Boeing, which offered their options for the manned spacecraft Dragon V2 and CST- 100 Starliner respectively. After that, the Sierra Nevada Corporation decided to switch to the creation of a transport version of the shuttle. It was in this capacity that the company turned out to be one of the three winners of the Commercial Crew Program 2 competition for the second phase of the ISS supply. Within the framework of this program, Dream Chaser spaceplanes will perform six flights to the International Space Station until 2024.
There is no doubt that Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is implementing its project. Today, SNC, founded in 1963, is one of the three most innovative American space companies. SNC is also well established in the civilian, military and commercial markets and is a top tier supplier to the US Air Force and one of America's fastest growing companies.
Sierra Nevada Corporation has found a replacement for the Atlas 5 rocket with the Russian RD-180 engines
According to the published press release, representatives of the American company Sierra Nevada Corporation have decided on the launch vehicle that will be used for the first six launches of the Dream Chaser space shuttle to the International Space Station. The cargo spaceplane will be launched using the Vulcan rocket, which is being developed by another American company, United Launch Alliance (ULA). At the same time, SNC emphasizes that a wide range of conventional rockets that are already on the market can be used to launch a transport spacecraft. For example, earlier, the Atlas 5 rocket, on which the Russian RD-180 engine is installed, was considered as a possible carrier.
Dream Chaser spaceplane and Vulcan launch vehicle
SNC notes that they opted for ULA because of the close cooperation in the implementation of the Dream Chaser spaceplane project, as well as because of the reputation that the United Launch Alliance possesses, in particular in the field of flight safety and punctuality of launches. ULA is a joint space venture owned by two giants of the American industry, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The cumulative legacy of these corporations in aircraft construction and space exploration is enormous. ULA, which was founded in December 2006, boasts the successful launch of more than 130 satellites into orbit, which provide global communications, observation of the Earth's surface, and solve various scientific problems.
To launch various payloads into space, ULA uses three main types of launch vehicles: Atlas-5, Delta-2 and Delta-4. Moreover, both of these families of missiles have been used by the Americans for more than half a century. In this regard, the Vulcan heavy-lift launch vehicle will replace the Atlas-5 rocket. Work on the successor to the Atlas rocket, which is powered by a Russian-made RD-180 engine, has been underway in the United States since 2014. The new rocket project is being created in the framework of public-private partnerships. According to plans, the first flight of the new Vulcan launch vehicle should take place in April 2021. In the new rocket at the first stage, there will be fundamentally new engines of American production, we are talking about the oxygen-methane engines BE-4. It is the use of liquefied natural gas (methane) instead of kerosene as a fuel that is an innovative feature of this rocket engine.
It is already known that the new American Vulcan launch vehicle will be two-stage. For launching heavy loads into orbit, the rocket configuration allows the installation of up to 6 solid-state side boosters. It is expected that the most payload version of the Vulcan rocket will be able to deliver payloads weighing up to 34.9 tons into orbit. At the same time, a version of the launch vehicle with 4 solid-propellant boosters, two engines located on the second stage and a five-meter nose fairing will be used to send the Dream Chaser into space.
Spaceplane Dream Chaser and its features
If the new American rocket is still at the design stage and the creation of the first flight model, which will be launched no earlier than 2021, then work on the Dream Chaser spacecraft has advanced much further. The new spacecraft from SNC engineers has been in the testing phase for a long time. The first flight tests of the novelty began in 2013, although the first flight ended in failure for the device. During landing, the nose landing gear did not come out, and the spaceplane received serious damage. As a result, the first successful landing of the spacecraft at the airfield took place only at the end of 2017.
According to the Dream Chaser project, it is a spacecraft that is returned to Earth, made according to the scheme of a spaceplane. When creating a new multipurpose space transport vehicle, the developers used design solutions that had previously been implemented in the design of the American spacecraft HL-20 and a large series of its predecessors, including X-20 Dyna-Sor, Northrop M2-F2, Northrop M2-F3, Northrop HL-10, Martin X-24A and X-24B, the first of which began to be tested back in the 60s of the last century. Initially, it was planned to create a manned version of the spacecraft, designed to deliver 2-7 astronauts and cargo to orbit, but at the moment work is underway on an unmanned version of the shuttle in the cargo version.
The new spacecraft will provide the ability to deliver cargo to low-earth orbit and then return home. Unlike other spacecraft that land by parachute, the new spacecraft will land like an airplane on the runway. All six space shuttles launched under the CRS-2 program are slated to land at the Kennedy Space Center on the runway that was built to host the previous Space Shuttle.
The new American space shuttle Dream Chaser will be able to deliver up to 5500 kg of various cargoes aboard the ISS, as well as return about 1750 kg of payload back to Earth. Thanks to the ability to land on the runway, and not at sea, the cargo delivered to Earth from the spaceplane can be unloaded very quickly. This is especially important for various scientific programs and is especially useful when conducting biological experiments. Structurally, the shuttle will consist of two parts: the spaceplane itself and an additional service-cargo module docked with it, which will be located in the aft part of the vehicle. A distinctive feature of the Dream Chaser will be folding wings. Such a technical solution is necessary in order to place the ship inside the rocket nose fairing, the diameter of which does not exceed 5 meters. This method of launching the spacecraft into orbit distinguishes the new spaceplane from its American predecessor, the Space Shuttle, and the Soviet Buran.
It is worth noting that the Soviet Union developed a spacecraft similar in design and method of launch, known as BOR-4 (unmanned orbital rocket plane) or Kosmos-1374. It was an experimental unmanned spacecraft, which was a scaled-down (approximately 1: 2) copy of the Spiral orbiting aircraft. In the USSR, from 1982 to 1984, 6 successful launches of this spacecraft were carried out, in which the spacecraft was launched into various orbits with an altitude of up to 225 km. The device, which is notable for its modest dimensions, like the modern American spaceplane Dream Chaser, was launched into orbit inside the head fairing of the launch vehicle. The tests and experiments carried out in the USSR within the framework of the BOR-4 program made it possible to finally solve all the existing problems of thermal protection of the "main star" of the Soviet space program - the Buran orbital rocket ship.
