Sierra Space announces plans to build a second Dream Chaser cargo spaceplane
With the first launch of Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser reusable unmanned cargo mini-shuttle, Tenacity, now scheduled for May 2025, the company has announced that it is beginning work on a second cargo spaceplane, dubbed Reverence, along with a mission control center to operate its fleet in orbit.
Sierra Space spokesperson Alex Walker shared the new May 2025 estimate and said work on Reverence, also known as DC-102, will resume once the team returns to Colorado — but declined to clarify when that would happen. At that point, Walker said, it will likely be another 18 months before the second spaceplane is complete. In addition to the fleet of cargo-carrying craft, Sierra Space is also working on a crewed variant of the vessel, labeled the DC-200 series, and a national security DC-300 variant.
Company officials say each mini-shuttle is good for 15 flights, so having both vehicles gives the company a total of 30 flights to sell to various space station and orbital customers.
Selling to others outside NASA may be necessary, because Tenacity is four-plus years behind schedule. By the time it begins flying ISS will already be approaching retirement in only a few short years.
The company intends these new Dream Chaser projects to work in tandem with its LIFE inflatable modules, which are presently being developed as part of the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef space station. And while much of work on the rest of that station appears moribund, it appears that Sierra is developing everything needed for its own space station. We should therefore not be surprised if Sierra decides to bid on NASA’s next space station funding round independent entirely of the Orbital Reef partnership.
It certainly is assembling all the pieces needed for a station, without any help from Blue Origin.
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With the first launch of Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser reusable unmanned cargo mini-shuttle, Tenacity, now scheduled for May 2025, the company has announced that it is beginning work on a second cargo spaceplane, dubbed Reverence, along with a mission control center to operate its fleet in orbit.
Sierra Space spokesperson Alex Walker shared the new May 2025 estimate and said work on Reverence, also known as DC-102, will resume once the team returns to Colorado — but declined to clarify when that would happen. At that point, Walker said, it will likely be another 18 months before the second spaceplane is complete. In addition to the fleet of cargo-carrying craft, Sierra Space is also working on a crewed variant of the vessel, labeled the DC-200 series, and a national security DC-300 variant.
Company officials say each mini-shuttle is good for 15 flights, so having both vehicles gives the company a total of 30 flights to sell to various space station and orbital customers.
Selling to others outside NASA may be necessary, because Tenacity is four-plus years behind schedule. By the time it begins flying ISS will already be approaching retirement in only a few short years.
The company intends these new Dream Chaser projects to work in tandem with its LIFE inflatable modules, which are presently being developed as part of the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef space station. And while much of work on the rest of that station appears moribund, it appears that Sierra is developing everything needed for its own space station. We should therefore not be surprised if Sierra decides to bid on NASA’s next space station funding round independent entirely of the Orbital Reef partnership.
It certainly is assembling all the pieces needed for a station, without any help from Blue Origin.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
AI maven Sam Altman is already saying AI will be over in five years and won’t make any meaningful impact on humanity long term. Space is much the same. SpaceX basically owns it and that won’t change. The other operations will basically be money vacuums for stupid investors.
Just wait until about 2035-ish when Tesla Optimus robots with XAI brains are flying SpaceX Starship v5’s mining the asteroid belt. That’ll be a tough market to crack.
18 months to build a second Dream-chaser? Snooze, lose, etc.
An interesting discussion on the Venture Star type X-33:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=61812.msg2638959#msg2638959
All they liked was a heat-shield.
As it turns out, Buran orbiters could have flown with conventional turbo-jets after all:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/energia-buran-space-transportation-system.5656/page-7#post-725147
This is why I want an American Energiya/Buran type Shuttle 2.
I envision a larger top/wing mount pair of J-79s, Venture Star metal heat-shield.
The core would have the main engines…that can come home in a pod leaving the tank as a wet workshop—-or the engine/tankage combo land like Starship with the orbiter keeping crew in a craft that is just another jet plane on return.
No need for Skylon type airbreathing.
They went under anyway:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/reaction-engines-sabre-engine-skylon-spaceplane.2455/page-17#post-725633
Jeff Wright wrote, “This is why I want an American Energiya/Buran type Shuttle 2.”
I’ve said this to you before. You “want” a lot of things, as if they can snapped out of thin air for nothing. If you think this is such a great idea, I would think investors would be easy to find. And yet they are not.
Maybe it ain’t such a great idea after all.
Maybe we can use these to resupply mars, I’m sure we’ll have Colonized mars before they get off the ground
With all due respect, having a glide capability is a need, not a want.
Starship with no LAS? I’ll let you have that.