An unmanned blank airplane has complete atestin the US , ahead of plan flights into space in the coming years .

Sierra Nevada Corporation ’s ( SNC ) Dream Chaser had a successful “ free flying ” psychometric test on Saturday , November 11 . This involve it being drop off from a chopper and then gliding to the ground .

The trial run charter place at NASA ’s Armstrong Flight Research Center , Edwards , California . The end was to test out how the fomite perform in its final approach to the rail . A previous test in 2013 result in fond unsuccessful person when the landing geardidn’t workplace properly .

This time around , everything appear to have croak smoothly . SNC has n’t released technical details about the flight yet but it is expected to do so later today .

In a post on Twitter , the company articulate the plane had a “ beautiful trajectory and landing ” . This was the first time the Dream Chaser had flown in four days , since that accident in 2013 .

SNC has a contract with NASA to use the Dream Chaser space plane to resupply the International Space Station ( ISS ) . From 2020 or 2021 , it ’s hope the fomite will begin ingest cargo up there .

Originally the vehicle was designed to take human being into orbit , but that design was shelved when NASA did not pick SNC for their Commercial Crew Program , opt for SpaceX and Boeing alternatively . Dream Chaser may still launch humanity in the futurity , but for now it is focusing on payload under NASA ’s Commercial Resupply Services 2 program .

The vehicle is reminiscent of the Space Shuttle , although at 9 meter ( 30 feet ) long it is about four time smaller . In a fun twist of circumstances , Dream Chaser landed on the same runway on this psychometric test that the Space Shuttles once did .

For this test it ’s trust the Dream Chaser was dropped from a altitude of 3,000 meters ( 10,000 feet ) . When it eventually set up , it will do so atop an Atlas Phoebe rocket , refund to Earth from orbit by itself . This capability will allow it to return payload and equipment from space .

Aside from conducting launch for NASA , SNC is also in discussion with officialsin Europeto use Dream Chaser to found European payloads .