LOUISVILLE, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sierra Space, a leading, pureplay commercial space company building the first end-to-end business and technology platform in space, today was awarded a Space Act Agreement by NASA under the second Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities initiative.
Through the agreement, Sierra Space will provide NASA with valuable insight and collaboration into its crewed Dream Chaser® spaceplane; new commercial space station architectures; and in-space logistics, refueling and servicing systems. NASA will advance deployment of Sierra Space’s platform and ecosystem by providing access to facilities and support for environmental and crew systems testing, tools and software.
This SAA award by NASA provides support to a “pathfinder” space station, which serves as a technology demonstration for key elements of commercial space stations. Such demonstrations are vital steps to ultimately designing objects intended for sustained commercial habitation in orbit. The SAA is set to begin while the systems are in the design and development phases and last for five years – through on-orbit deployment later this decade.
“Sierra Space is building the in-space infrastructure and end-to-end business platform to accelerate the new space economy,” said Tom Vice, CEO of Sierra Space. “This agreement with NASA enables active collaboration to share our expertise and findings as we conduct the formative work that will open the door to extended human missions to space.”
Sierra Space is building the technology, business platform and ecosystem to power the new space economy, providing products and services to both government and commercial customers, ensuring a robust and competitive U.S. commercial space economy vital to long-term U.S. interests. This agreement provides collaboration and knowledge sharing from NASA to a new generation of space pioneers building our low Earth orbit (LEO) ecosystem.
Sierra Space’s open architecture enables the creation of a robust LEO commercial ecosystem and the catalyst for the next breakthrough innovations in biotechnology, human health, telecommunications, computing, advanced materials, and clean energy.
About Sierra Space
Sierra Space is a leading, pureplay commercial space company at the forefront of innovation and the commercialization of space in the Orbital Age™, building an end-to-end business and technology platform in space to benefit life on Earth. With more than 30 years and 500 missions of space flight heritage, the company is enabling the future of space transportation with Dream Chaser®, the world’s only commercial spaceplane, and is bringing LIFE™ (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) to low-Earth orbit with its modular, three-story commercial habitation and science platform. Both Dream Chaser and LIFE are central components to Orbital Reef, a mixed-use business park in LEO being developed by principal partners Sierra Space and Blue Origin, which is expected to be operational by the end of the decade. Sierra Space also builds and delivers a host of systems and subsystems across solar power, mechanics and motion control, environmental control, life support, propulsion and thermal control, offering myriad space-as-a-service solutions for the new space economy.