SPARKS, Nev., May 09, 2013 – Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has successfully completed the Dream Chaser Integrated System Safety Design Review. The review is the first major system safety review of the Dream Chaser conducted under NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) agreement. SNC conducted the milestone with the goal of demonstrating that the Dream Chaser system safety analysis is influencing design decisions and sufficiently mature given the stage of the design development to provide confidence that the design will meet all SNC and NASA safety requirements. The review produced numerous data analyses including system and subsystem hazards and causes, and control strategies that NASA reviewed and provided feedback on.
"Safety review milestones are critical to ensuring safety and reliability techniques and methods are incorporated into space systems design," said Ed Mango, NASA's CCP manager. "NASA's participation in these reviews provides our partners with critical design experiences from past human spaceflight activities."
"Dream Chaser is making substantial progress toward flight with the help of our NASA team," said Mark Sirangelo, head of SNC's Space Systems. "The ability to openly exchange information through the work on these CCiCap milestones is invaluable for many reasons, such as communicating Dream Chaser development plans and receiving timely feedback from NASA, all of which help to improve our design and maximize safety and reliability. As we begin our flight test program we have a better and stronger program due to our partnership with NASA."
“The success of this review is a direct result of our team’s dedication to the safe and reliable operation of Dream Chaser. We have put a significant amount of time and energy into ensuring that this spacecraft will be as safe as humanely possible, and we are pleased to have this opportunity to clearly demonstrate that fact to our customer,” said John Turner, SNC’s Space Systems director of safety and mission assurance.
About SNC
SNC is a trusted global leader in aerospace and national security. Our innovative solutions enable connected protection through command, control and communications systems, as well as ISR, cyber, electromagnetic spectrum management, and other high capabilities for national security systems across all domains – sea, land, air, space and cyber. As a longstanding leader in defense technology, SNC is at the optimum intersection of commercial, defense and non-traditional contractors. We are one of the only privately owned mid-tier A&D contractors and we pride ourselves on our ability to invest early and often to ensure mission success on or ahead of schedule. It's part of our mission to always stay one step ahead; working on solutions today to solve the problems of tomorrow. Founded in 1963, SNC is owned by Chairwoman Eren Ozmen and CEO Fatih Ozmen.