Dream Chaser Space Plane Makes Crucial Leap Toward Orbital Flights

Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spacecraft completed a successful captive-carry test (in which the craft is suspended from another vehicle during flight) today (Aug. 30) at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California's Mojave Desert. The flight test was a crucial step toward using the space vehicle for orbital flights to the International Space Station. Attached with a 200-foot-long (61 meters) cable to a Columbia 234-UT helicopter, a test model of the Dream Chaser lifted off at 7:21 a.m. PDT (10:21 a.m. EDT/1421 GMT). The two vehicles flew over Rogers Dry Lake for 1 hour and 41 minutes before landing (with Dream Chaser's gear extended) at 9:02 a.m. PDT (12:02 p.m. EDT/1602 GMT). More

(Source: Space.com - Sep 1)