[SatNews] The Company played a major role in the recent TacSat-4 mission and have also been the recipient of additional NASA funding for CCDev2...

Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Space Systems has revealed its role in the recently-launched TacSat-4 mission. The Universal Interface Electronics (UIE) unit developed by SNC and launched as part of the TacSat-4 mission on September 27th. The UIE unit is a prototype of SNC’s distributed, modular avionics architecture developed as part of the DoD plug and play responsive satellite initiative. The primary purpose of the UIE device is to enable rapid interfacing of various devices with differing interface protocols via firmware reprogramming with the intent of eliminating expensive and time consuming hardware modifications and requalification. TacSat-4, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, is the latest in a series of satellites intended to demonstrate an ability to rapidly deploy small, low-cost spacecraft that can meet the needs of military commanders at the theater level. It is part of a larger DoD initiative known as Operationally Responsive Space (ORS). SNC’s Space Systems group provided the satellite for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) TacSat-2 ISR satellite, which launched in December of 2006, and the SPA Avionics Experiment (SAE) payload on TACSat-3 that launched in May of 2009. With regards to the significance of the TacSat-4 experiment, Jeff Summers, SNC’s Space System’s VP of Technology, said, “The development and subsequent flight of the UIE on the TacSat-4 mission is important to SNC as it represents validation of the on-board processor base lined in all 18 of SNC’s commercial ORBCOMM Generation 2 satellites.”

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden announced during his speech to the Air Force Association's 2011 Air and Space Conference that NASA will fund optional milestones pre-negotiated as part of its Commercial Crew Development Program Round 2 (CCDev2) Space Act Agreement (SAA) with Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Space Systems. NASA amended Sierra Nevada Corporation's SAA to include four additional optional milestones for a total of $25.6 million, bringing the value of Sierra Nevada's CCev2 SAA to $105.6 million, when all milestones are completed successfully. Phil McAlister, director of NASA's Commercial Spaceflight Development, said, "These additional milestones were selected because they sufficiently accelerated the development of commercial crew transportation systems to justify additional NASA investment." The Dream Chaser Space System is designed to offer a low-cost, safe alternative to commercial crew and cargo transportation to and from low Earth orbit, including the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser vehicle is a reusable, lifting-body spacecraft that launches vertically and lands horizontally on a conventional runway. The system, capable of carrying seven crew and critical cargo will enter operational service by 2015.