SUV

[George K]

Space Utility Vehicle

Soaring into the wild blue yonder and beyond, the planet's only non-capsule, private orbital spacecraft, Dream Chaser, is slated to make its first flight sometime next year shuttling supplies and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA.

This stylish unmanned space plane was recently given its official name, Tenacity, and a pair of exotic composite material wings to complete its sleek design. Constructed by the Colorado-based aerospace firm Sierra Nevada Corporation, Dream Chaser is meant to launch vertically atop a booster rocket and completes its missions with gliding runway landings similar to NASA's retired fleet of space shuttles.

Tenacity is tentatively scheduled to blast off for its debut in late 2021, locked to the tip of a powerful United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"It's an SUV for space — a Space Utility Vehicle," Kimberly Schwandt, Sierra Nevada's communications director, told Space. "Our dream is to have a whole fleet of space planes."

Dream Chaser alone is able to haul roughly 2,000 pounds of supplies and cargo. Its spacious 16-foot-tall cargo module, named Shooting Star, can be added onto the space plane to bolster its maximum capacity to 12,000 pounds. Following a routine transfer of cargo, astronauts will be able to load up the Shooting Star with garbage. As Tenacity drops back into Earth's atmosphere, this disposable module will detach and burn up during the reentry procedure.

Link to video

[89th]

Nothing says 'MURICA better than putting our SUVs in space!

[89th]

On a slightly related note, I was telling my wife that I would fully expect (before I die) that there will be relatively affordable trips up to space and back for citizens. I would really love that.