In mid-January, the American aerospace agency NASA decided to sign several major contracts with private companies in the space industry. Among others, the contract was awarded to the Sierra Nevada Corporation, which offers the Dream Chaser reusable spacecraft project. Soon there was information about the possible appearance of such an agreement between the Sierra Nevada Corporation and the European Space Agency. While experts are discussing the promising of such agreements, interesting publications appeared in the foreign press on the origin of the Dream Chaser project.
On February 16, The Washington Post published an article by Christian Davenport, "The unlikely Cold War origins of America's most intriguing spacecraft". The author of this publication recalled the history of the Dream Chaser project, as well as reviewed earlier events that accompanied space exploration programs. As the title suggests, K. Davenport came to some interesting conclusions.
The author of The Washington Post begins his article with a reminder of the events of the past. 1982 year. The Russians are clearly plotting something. A Soviet ship in the Indian Ocean is struggling to lift something out of the water. It is impossible to determine what exactly the sailors are getting. The Australian reconnaissance aircraft managed to detect the strange actions of the Soviet ship, and also took several pictures of this operation.
Dream Chaser prototype. Photo Wikimedia Commons
Australian intelligence officers passed on the photos they received to their American counterparts at the CIA. Those, in turn, attracted NASA specialists to the work. Only the joint work of several departments made it possible to establish the truth and find out what exactly the Soviet ship was doing in the Indian Ocean. As it turned out, Soviet sailors were lifting the BOR-4 apparatus from the water. It was an unmanned aerial vehicle designed to test thermal protection systems. According to NASA, this device was created in one of the early stages of the development of the Soviet reusable spacecraft.
K. Davenport believes that the 1982 photographs could have been lost and forgotten by historians. However, in mid-January, the aerospace agency announced partnerships with several private organizations on their new projects. Among others, the Dream Chaser spacecraft will receive support from NASA. Based on its characteristic appearance, the author calls this product a "snub-nosed craft derived from that lost Soviet space plane".
Gaining NASA support is a great achievement for Sierra Nevada, and also opens a new chapter in the history of a small and interesting spacecraft. The resumption of the Dream Chaser project with the support of NASA should now be the impetus for the resumption of work on reusable space technology. Several private companies will receive additional funding from the aerospace agency to enable them to continue working. The result of this should be the creation of a full-fledged vehicle for delivering cargo or astronauts to orbit. K. Davenport recalls that the new ships should deliver people to orbit at the end of this decade.
After completing a description of the current successes of private space firms, the author of The Washington Post goes back to history. Having studied the available images of the Soviet BOR-4 apparatus, American specialists developed their own draft design of such equipment. An analysis of this development showed that such a device should have very high characteristics and show itself well during operation. As NASA historians later wrote, the Soviet project opened the eyes of American scientists.
For a long time, US Air Force specialists have been working on a project of similar equipment capable of performing multiple flights into space. Over time, NASA joined such work with the HL-20 project, which was based on several photographs of the Soviet apparatus. It was assumed that the main task of such a "space plane" would be the emergency evacuation of astronauts from space stations. However, the HL-20 project faced a lack of funding and other problems of a different nature, as a result of which it was closed.
Until a certain time, the HL-20 project remained forgotten, and the built model of this device remained out of work. The situation changed only in the middle of the 2000s. At that time, Mark Cirangelo, the head of one of the private companies in the space industry, which later became part of the Sierra Nevada Corporation, was working on the concept of a promising spacecraft. Having learned about the HL-20 project, M. Cirangelo got the opportunity to see the prototype. The only prototype built was idle in the corner of one of NASA's hangars under a tarp, and its appearance clearly indicated that this product had long been forgotten. The sample was in limbo for about ten years: they were going to send it to the landfill, but it never came to that.
HL-20 device model. Photo Wikimedia Commons
Despite the poor condition of the sample he saw, the head of the space industry company became interested in him and continued work in this direction. The new project of Sierra Nevada was proposed to build on existing developments. The new project was named Dream Chaser and was proposed by NASA. After the completion of the operation of the Space Shuttle ships, the development of the new project continued with redoubled efforts, including with the support of the aerospace agency. So, NASA invested about $ 360 million in Dream Chaser.
K. Davenport recalls that state financial support has already allowed several private companies to continue developing new space technology projects and get them off the ground. For example, SpaceX and Blue Origin, with government support, are creating and building launch vehicles that can take off and land multiple times, thereby reducing operating costs.
A joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance (ULA), is developing a rocket with recoverable engines. This means that after the stage is dropped, all its units will fall down, and the engines will be able to descend by parachute. At a certain height, they will be caught by special helicopters with special hooks that will be able to safely return expensive and complex products to the ground.
At the end of February, Virgin Galactic plans to present to the public a new version of the SpaceShipTwo project. An apparatus of this type is proposed to be launched into space not from the ground, but from the air. A special carrier aircraft will lift the spacecraft with a rocket block to an altitude of 50 thousand feet, where it will begin its independent flight. SpaceShipTwo will be able to land on ordinary runways.
The Dream Chaser project brings together some of the basic ideas used in new reusable space technology projects. It is proposed to launch a spacecraft of this type using a special launch vehicle with appropriate attachments on the warhead. It will return to Earth and land like the old Shuttles. After that, the device will be able to fly again.
Several years ago, the author recalls, there were some doubts about the possibility of solving the tasks. The device Dream Chaser has a relatively small size and is inferior in size to the decommissioned Space Shuttle. The possibility of replacing the latter with the first could be cause for doubt. After the announcement of the requirements for the creation of a manned vehicle for transporting astronauts, these suspicions were confirmed. According to the results of the analysis of projects, two developments dropped out of the competition, including Dream Chaser. The development company took this news hard.
In 2014, the aerospace agency launched a new competition, the goal of which was now to create a reusable vehicle for transporting goods. In just a few months, before January 2015, the existing project should have been revised and a new version of the spacecraft presented.
BOR-4 apparatus. Photo Buran.ru
This time, the Sierra Nevada Corporation not only coped with the task, but was also able to win the NASA competition. Sierra Nevada will take part in the new program, which also involves SpaceX and Orbital ATK. In the foreseeable future, they will have to complete the creation of their space trucks, as well as demonstrate their capabilities in practice. Approximately at the end of 2019, promising technology should deliver food supplies, other supplies and scientific equipment to the ISS. The management of the developer of the Dream Chaser project in the near future intends not only to develop the cargo version of the vehicle, but also to offer NASA a project of a system for transporting people again.
Referring to the portal Ars Technica, K. Davenport reports that the authors of the Dream Chaser project have shown interest not only in the HL-20, but also in its Soviet prototype BOR-4. Back in 2005, M. Cirangelo traveled to Russia and met with specialists who participated in the development of this system. The American designer told his Russian colleagues that their development continues to live, which greatly surprised them. The head of the new project promised that on the first flight of the Dream Chaser he will take on board a list of engineers who participated in its creation, as well as developed the BOR-4 and HL-20.
M. Sirangelo in one of his interviews said that one of the developers of the BOR-4 project passed away a few years ago. His daughter wrote a letter to the American designer stating that it was very important for the former Soviet engineer to have a list of all the project participants on board the new ship.
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The publication of The Washington Post "The unlikely Cold War origins of America's most intriguing spacecraft" is very interesting, as it reveals the details of the new project, known only to experts and historians of the space industry. Nevertheless, the facts set out in it and the complex history of the new development may be of interest to the general public. Such a twisted plot, in which several projects from two countries are connected, could become the basis for a good book.
Indeed, the current design of the Dream Chaser reusable spacecraft goes back to the earlier HL-20, which, in turn, was an American attempt to study the features of the Soviet BOR-4 system. Recall that from the late sixties to the mid-eighties, the Soviet industry developed and tested several devices of the BOR series ("Unmanned orbital rocket plane"), which were large-scale mock-ups of the "Spiral" aircraft. Until a certain time, foreign intelligence did not have detailed data on the BOR project, but the situation changed in the summer of 1982.
BOR-4 after flight. Photo Buran.ru
On June 3, 1982, at the Kapustin Yar test site, the launch vehicle "Kosmos-3M" was launched with a payload in the form of the apparatus "Kosmos-1374", which was a BOR-4 product. The spacecraft performed a suborbital flight of 1, 25 orbits around the Earth, after which it splashed down in the Indian Ocean near the Cocos Islands. Soviet ships with special equipment found the splashed device and lifted it out of the water. During this operation, they were noticed by the Australian anti-submarine aircraft P-3, which resulted in the appearance of the first photographs of the new Soviet development.
Subsequently, the study of the obtained photographic materials led to the emergence of the HL-20 project, on the basis of which the new Dream Chaser device was developed in the middle of the 2000s. The Soviet project "Spiral", in turn, was not implemented in its original form, but contributed to the appearance of the spacecraft "Buran".
This "continuity of generations" is of certain interest, and is also a reason for criticism. In fact, the ideas that appeared in the sixties of the last century in the Soviet Union can only now reach full-fledged practical application, but they are being implemented by US specialists. Here one might ask why the Soviet developments were not applied in their own country, but after some changes are used by foreign companies? It is unlikely that the answer to this question will be simple and pleasant.
With all the drawbacks of this situation, it should be noted that the management of Sierra Nevada respects the creators of previous projects that became the basis for the new Dream Chaser device. So, during the first full-fledged space flight, as a token of gratitude, it is planned to take on board a list of all the people who participated in the creation of the projects that underlie the Dream Chaser, including Soviet specialists.
