SANDUSKY, Ohio — Inside NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility, it's a spacecraft that stands out from the others.
Colorado-based Sierra Space is currently testing its Dream Chaser, an autonomous commercial spaceplane, which NASA has contracted to transport supplies and experiments between Earth and the International Space Station.
"This is truly a historic day," said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice. "The most significant industrial revolution in history is underway in space."
What makes this spaceplane, named Tenacity, stand out is the capability to have its wings unfold in space.
Vice explained that allowing the spaceplane to be placed atop a rocket opens up all sorts of new possibilities, including allowing the reusable Dream Chaser to eventually re-enter the Earth and land on runways just about anywhere.
"The work we are doing will change everything," he said. "We’ve done a great job on the planet building a worldwide infrastructure for runways. We’re accessing all of those. If you can land a single-aisle airliner, you can land a Dream Chaser."
Tenacity is undergoing all sorts of specialized testing to challenge itself with launch-like vibrations and conditions it will see in space.
"It’s the only place in the world you can do it," Dr. Jimmy Kenyon, director at the NASA Glenn Research Center, pointed out. "This is the world's largest acoustic test facility, the world's largest spacecraft shaker facility to do vibration testing. We've got what we believe the world's largest vacuum and thermal vacuum chambers. We're the only place where you can test scale rockets at an altitude condition and do it on the ground."
And with more of this testing underway, those here at NASA point to projects like this as the first of many to come.
"The commercial space flight industry is ramping up and we're seeing that right here," Dr. Kenyon said. "The entire Armstrong Test Facility is operating in a cadence that frankly is unprecedented and we see more continuing to come."
Once testing is done in Ohio, Dream Chaser is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as this summer.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5.
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