Sierra’s Dream Chaser is starting to resemble a nightmare

The Dream Chaser spaceplane, which has been under development for two decades, now seems like it might be further than ever from taking flight.

On Thursday, NASA, confirming an earlier Ars Technica report, said the first flight of the winged spacecraft will no longer berth with the International Space Station. Rather, the space agency said, the Dream Chaser program would be "best served" by a free flight demonstration.

"Development of new space transportation systems is difficult and can take longer than what’s originally planned," said Dana Weigel, manager of NASA's International Space Station Program, in a news release. "As NASA and its partners look toward space station deorbit in 2030, this mutually agreed to decision enables testing and verification to continue on Dream Chaser, as well as demonstrating the capabilities of the spaceplane for future resupply missions in low Earth orbit."

A dream delayed

Development work on Dream ...