Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is pleased to announce that the company's Dream Chaser Space System has successfully completed its first milestone as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative.

SNC presented NASA with a complete Program Implementation Plan Review, detailing the design, development, system testing, evaluation, risk reduction activities and flight testing of all systems planned for the 21-month base and optional agreement period.

"We have gotten off to a great start by rapidly completing our Program Implementation Plan Review with the NASA Commercial Crew Program management. We agreed to the plan for accomplishing a significant amount of hardware development, testing and the reviews necessary to advance the Dream Chaser Space System toward orbital flight.

"We will continue to retire risk and make significant progress in completing a safe and reliable spacecraft for NASA astronauts," said Jim Voss, vice president of SNC's Space Exploration Systems, which is producing the Dream Chaser.

SNC also is preparing to conduct its first Approach and Landing Test, mirroring the flight test of NASA's space shuttle Enterprise. That test is scheduled for later this year and will be completed in conjunction with Dream Chaser's NASA Dryden Flight Research Center team at the historic Edwards Air Force Base.