NASA’s moon plans relegate space planes to an almost-forgotten future

April 13, 2026

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NASA’s moon plans relegate space planes to an almost-forgotten future

After all these years, Dream Chaser—a commercial U.S. space plane—is still chasing the dream of spacecraft that can fly from orbit to airports

By Tom Metcalfe edited by Lee Billings

Sierra Nevada Corp’s Dream Chaser space plane is lifted by helicopter from a ramp at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., before a successful approach and landing flight test on Nov. 11, 2017.

NASA/Ken Ulbrich

Late last month Dream Chaser, a commercial U.S. space plane, received no mention during NASA’s in-depth “Ignition” briefing, which set out the agency’s comprehensive plans to return to the moon. Dream Chaser will not be part of that push—there’s little use for aerodynamic flight on Earth’s airless moon, and despite its decades in development, the space plane has yet to reach space. The rise of reusable conventional rockets during that time has also undercut much of Dream Chaser’s notional utility, further dimming the project’s prospects. But NASA’s boldly moon-focused event did offer one potential lifeline: the possibility that Dream Chaser might still one day dock with the International Space Station (ISS).

Space planes that can fly back and forth between Earth and orbit have been part of the dream of space travel since the 1930s. NASA’s space shuttle program, which flew 135 orbital missions between 1981 and 2011, transformed those dreams into reality. But the shuttle program ended after the agency decided it was too expensive—and, after the Challenger and Columbia disasters, too dangerous—to continue.

Dream Chaser’s first flight to space is now targeted for an unspecified date later this year, but its path to launch has been very long. NASA developed its “lifting body” design in the 1980s as the HL-20 Personnel Launch System—a low-cost alternative to the shuttle. After the shuttle program, NASA kept the space plane idea going, but never again at so grand a scale—and, in 2004, a private company called SpaceDev picked up the HL-20 where the space agency left off. This would become the Dream Chaser project.

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Since then, Dream Chaser’s development has been funded by private investment and the Sierra Nevada Corporation, which acquired SpaceDev in 2008. NASA did chip in some money, however, and Dream Chaser was once a contender for crewed flights to the ISS. But across the years, as the space plane has missed one major technical deadline after another—often because of difficulties with its heat shield—the dream has faded.

A recent setback was the loss of contracts for resupply missions to the ISS. According to Sierra Space—the division of the Sierra Nevada Corporation that now operates the spacecraft—an unpiloted version of Dream Chaser had been slated to resupply the ISS at least seven times, using a detachable module to deliver up to six tons of cargo. But those plans were set aside last year while the future of the ISS was debated, and Sierra Space announced a pivot to national defense and security applications in orbit.

Planetary Society policy analyst Casey Dreier thinks there may be future opportunities for Dream Chaser, but that the long-sought demonstration flight hoped for later this year might also be its last: “That is a possibility,” he says.

When—or if—it finally launches, the automated version of Dream Chaser is expected to perform a few maneuvers in orbit, before flying down to a runway landing at the Vandenburg Space Force base in California—one of two locations prepared for its arrival. NASA has not responded to recent inquiries about the status of the project, and Sierra Space has declined to comment—although there's also been nothing to suggest the demonstration flight has been abandoned. NASA is now in the middle of returning to the moon, and the agency may not see this as a good time to comment on Dream Chaser.

Dreier thinks Dream Chaser will struggle without NASA’s support. Sierra Space have proposed the spacecraft could be retrofitted for other tasks, including national security missions, and Dream Chaser’s relatively gentle landings from orbit would be a key selling point for delicate onboard experiments. But Dreier says the Dream Chaser cargo space may not be suitable for many missions. He notes another opportunity, however: a bill to extend the life of the ISS, perhaps until 2032, is working its way through the U.S. Congress. If that goes ahead, NASA will n