Sparks, Nev.-based Sierra Nevada Corp. was the big winner in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) competition, receiving $20 million of the $50 million in economic stimulus money meant to seed development of commercial crew transportation services, reports SpaceNews.
A Sierra Nevada executive, however, told Space News late last year that the Sparks, Nevada-based company’s plan involves a runway-landing, lifting-body vehicle called Dream Chaser that the company has been working on for several years. The six-passenger vehicle is based on NASA’s HL-20 concept from the early 1990s.
A Paragon Space Development Corp. executive said last November that the company proposed a yearlong effort to build and demonstrate an air revitalization system that could be incorporated into any contemplated commercial space capsule, including a crewed variant of the Cygnus vehicle proposed by Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp.
So, the question becomes: Will the HL-20-like design come home to Virginia to launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island and land on a runway in Accomack County or splashdown in the nearby Atlantic in the next few years?
No comments:
Post a Comment