THE NEW SPACE RACE: Nose-Up Dream Chaser Spaceplane Gets the Shakes Ahead of Historic Mission.

The spaceplane is at the Armstrong Test Facility not solely to be shown to the media, but to undergo crucial testing to see if it can survive the hardships of going to orbit, but also the extremes of space.

The facility NASA operates in Ohio is home to the world’s most powerful shaker system. That’s a piece of hardware meant to rattle spacecraft to their core, in a bid to simulate the vibrations they will experience during launch and re-entry. The Dream Chaser has already gone through it, and nothing fell off.

Now that this crucial step is out of the way, NASA will move the plane in a huge vacuum chamber, this time in a bid to simulate the coldness and emptiness of space, complete with low pressure, low temperatures, and dynamic solar heating.

If all goes well the ship will eventually move to the Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for launch. It will reach the pad installed in the fairing of a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket, the same kind that was used for the first time in January to launch the failed Peregrine lunar lander.

Dream Chaser’s first mission will see it perform all sorts of tests to validate its systems. On approach to the ISS, it will perform far-field and near-field procedures to test its attitude control, translational maneuvers, and abort capabilities.

Godspeed…