The Sierra Nevada Corporation has officially booked a flight (announced 23 January 2014) on an Atlas V launch vehicle for its reusable Dream Chaser manned transportation vehicle’s first orbital test flight. The spacecraft is set to be launched in November 2016 and is likely to be unmanned for the first flight. In a separate development NASA indicated that it will be booking six more “seats” for its astronauts on board Soyuz flights until the end of 2017.
Comment by David Todd: The NASA Soyuz booking is thought to be an insurance policy lest its commercial space suppliers (Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp and their associates) are not ready to fly astronauts to the International Space Station that year – or at least allow them a more gentle hand over of crew transport responsibility.
