Sierra Space’s Cargo Space Plane Dream Chaser is again delayed and will no longer watch docking with the international space station. In a statement on Thursday afternoon, NASA said that the space agency and Sierra Space agreed to a major amendment of the contract of their space station.
The space aircraft is now scheduled to launch on its opening flight at the end of 2026. Also, instead of docking for ISS, vehicle name Penance Now we will operate a free-flag mission.
NASA said that under contract amendment it is “no longer obliged to a specific number of resale missions”. The original commercial resupply service-2 (CRS-2) contract specified a minimum of seven flights for ISS, with four missions honored as part of a firm-fixed price work order, “Depending on the needs of the space station.”
Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s International Space Station Program, said, “The development of new space transport systems is difficult and may take longer than being planned.” “A flight performance ability can be an important promoter in the development and readiness of a spacecraft, as well as providing more flexibility for NASA and Sierra space.
“As NASA and his partners look at the space station Deorbit in 2030, it has been mutually agreed to make decisions, it enables the test and verification to continue on the dream chaser, as well as demonstrates spaceplane’s capabilities for the future resurrection missions in the low Earth’s orbit.”
In 2016, the original company for Sierra Nevada Corporation, Sierra Space, was awarded the CRS -2 contract with Northrop Gumman and SpaceX for a maximum possible price of $ 14 billion from 2016 from 2024.
In November 2024, NASA extended the CRS -2 contract with all three providers with the ongoing Mission Award period till 31 December, 2030. It will take cargo flights through the approximate end of life to the space station.
Currently SPX-33 and NG-23 missions are set to depart in December and March respectively with Dragon and Scientific spacecraft.
Spaceflight now reached NASA to ask how soon the ISS could be honored with a mission by considering Sierra Space as a nominal free-flag mission next year. An agency spokesman said that it was still in the air.
A NASA spokesperson said, “After a successful orbital performance mission and certification, the NASA agency’s commercial revival service -2 may order flights from Sierra Space as part of the contract,” said a spokesperson of NASA.
Meanwhile, Sierra Space said in a press release that the free-brown mission is “expected to prove technology and give significant data to NASA” and “Syra Space offers the country’s most pressured national security space challenges to further the capabilities of Dream Chaser for NASA and commercial customers.”
Sierra Space is one of the primary partners with blue origin, developing a commercial space station called Orbital Reef. Sierra Space Dream will use the chaser as a method of transportation and will also provide its inflatable life (large integrated flexible environment) housing module.
In April 2025, NASA stated that the Orbital Reef completed the human-in-loop test, which performs some daily operations inside a mockup of the commercial space station.
The Sierra Space put a positive spin on the change in its contract with NASA.
“Dream Chaser represents the future of versatile space transport and mission flexibility,” Sierra Spaceuctive Chair Fath Ozman said in the company’s press release. “This infection provides unique abilities to meet the needs of various mission profiles, including emerging and existing danger and national security preferences that are aligned with our acceleration in the defense technology market.
“With NASA, we are trying to preserve the extraordinary ability of Dream Chaser as a national property, which ensure its readiness for the next era of space innovation.”
What happened to Dream Chaser?
The Dream Chaser Space Plane was originally conceived as a driver’s vehicle that could fly as part of the NASA commercial crew program. Finally, NASA selected Boeing’s CST -100 Starlineer and SpaceX’s dragon below, leaving Sierra Space to pill on its plans.
Since then the cargo version of the vehicle has been in the work. For years, it was slate to pay a second certification of Valcon rockets of the United Launch Alliance (CERT-2). Ula President and CEO Tory Bruno said last year said that he was waiting to launch the Dream Chaser on the CERT-2 mission, resulting in Ula flying without a payload on that mission.
Back in February 2024, media members were to NA NAL in Sanduski, Ohio. The Armstrong was invited to the test facility, so that the shooting star cargo module to look at the integrated Dream Chaser Space Plane. The leadership with NASA and Sierra Space postponed the vehicle capabilities, which was first looking towards the launch.
Tom Vice, the then CEO of Sierra Space, said, “We are coming out of the years of development, years of hard work, really in the years of resolving difficult engineering challenges, which we come from revolutionizing things.” “And we are really excited that this year we enter orbital operations for NASA. This is a year when we change how we connect the earth and location.”
In May 2024, Penance Arrived at Space System Processing Facility (SSPF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for “final test and prelonch processing”. Between and now, some official details are given about the work being done on the vehicle.
Now in response to spaceflight questions, Sierra Space said the following:
“Important manufacturing milestones have been achieved for Dream Chaser, which is now entering the final test stages to meet the rigorous pre-launch requirements. The vehicle has started an electromagnetic intervention (EMI) test.-A need to focus on Sierra Space to meet the Siera Space to meet the readiness and reliability of the Electromagnetic Intervention (EMI). Availability.”
