A Shuttle-like reusable spacecraft, modelled on the cancelled X-34, could be offered for NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) requirement. The vehicle would be developed from the Dream Chaser manned suborbital spacecraft being designed by SpaceDev.
Launched vertically, the single-stage Dream Chaser is designed to carry three or more crew to a suborbital altitude of 160km (100 miles) on a 100,000lb-thrust (445kN) hybrid rocket engine, then glide back to land horizontally. The Streaker engine, using solid rubber and liquid nitrous oxide, is scaled up from SpaceDev's hybrid rocket motor for Scaled Composites' suborbital SpaceShipOne.
"Looking at the X-34's dimensions and our Streaker core booster, they do fit nicely," says chief executive Jim Benson. "Offering [the Dream Chaser] as a CEV is an option." The Dream Chaser could fly manned and suborbitally in 2008, the year NASA plans to conduct unmanned flight tests of competing CEV prototypes.
Poway, California-based SpaceDev has signed a memorandum of understanding with NASA Ames Research Center to collaborate on developing low-cost launch vehicles. But Benson says no money will come from NASA for Dream Chaser. The Streaker hybrid engine is being developed with backing from the US military.
The X-34 was developed for NASA by Orbital Sciences as an air-launched suborbital demonstrator for reusable launch vehicle technologies, but was cancelled before it flew. Benson prefers the vertical launch approach for suborbital tourism, arguing the air-drop method used by SpaceShipOne is costly and complicated.
ROB COPPINGER / LONDON
Source: Flight International
