science

Sierra Nevada Corporation

Sierra Nevada Corporation is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sierra Nevada Corporation rather than just read about it. In short: Sierra Nevada Corporation (also styled SNC) is an American aerospace, defense, electronics, engineering and manufacturing corporation that specializes in aircraft modification, integration and other space technologies. The corporation contracts with the US Department of Defense, NASA, and private spaceflight companies.

Key takeaways

Sierra Nevada Corporation belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sierra Nevada Corporation to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sierra Nevada Corporation from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sierra Nevada Corporation (also styled SNC) is an American aerospace, defense, electronics, engineering and manufacturing corporation that specializes in aircraft modification, integration and other space technologies. The corporation contracts with the US Department of Defense, NASA, and private spaceflight companies. The corporation is headquartered in Sparks, Nevada, and has 36 locations in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Turkey. As of October 2020, the corporation has participated in over 500 successful space missions, including 14 missions to Mars. In 2021, the corporation created the subsidiary, Sierra Space, to continue working on the development of the Dream Chaser spaceplane and Commercial Space Station with Blue Origin The organization is a multi-billion-dollar corporation with over 4,000 employees. Its main business is working with the US Department of Defense and NASA on contracts.

History The corporation was founded in 1963 by John Chisholm with a few employees working out of an airplane hangar in the Reno Stead Airport. The corporation was acquired in 1994 by Fatih Özmen and Eren Özmen. Fatih Ozmen was hired in 1981. The corporation has since grown into a multi-billion-dollar corporation with over 4,000 employees. The company's main business is completing US Department of Defense and NASA contracts. In 2016, the corporation built a 130,000 square feet (12,000 m2) aircraft modification facility in Meridianville, Alabama, alongside Madison County Executive Airport. The facility was expanded with an additional 60,800 square feet (5,650 m2) building, which could hold seven Beechcraft Super King Air/C-12/MC-12S planes. SNC began modifying commercial aircraft into military surveillance aircraft, such as the US Army's EMARSS platform. On September 18, 2024, the People's Republic of China announced sanctions on nine U.S. military industrial companies, including Sierra Nevada Corporation, for their participation in arms sales to Taiwan.

Space systems In December 2008, the corporation completed its acquisition of SpaceDev, to develop an orbital spacecraft called the Dream Chaser. In April 2021, the corporation announced it would create Sierra Space, an independent commercial space corporation to develop the reusable Dream Chaser spaceplane and work with Blue Origin to create a commercial space station.

Dream Chaser spaceplane

In February 2010, Sierra Nevada Corporation was awarded $20 million in seed money in phase 1 of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program for the development of the Dream Chaser. Of the $50 million awarded in the phase 1 CCDev program, Dream Chaser's award represented the largest share of the funds. In August 2012, NASA announced new agreements with the Sierra Nevada Corporation and two other companies to design and develop the next generation of U.S. human spaceflight capabilities, enabling a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil within the next five years. Advances made by these companies under newly signed Space Act Agreements through the agency's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative were intended to ultimately lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers. As part of this agreement, Sierra Nevada Corporation was awarded $212.5 million to continue the development and testing of its Dream Chaser spacecraft. The Dream Chaser is a revival of NASA's HL-20 Personnel Launch System lifting-body design. In July 2014, the corporation signed a letter of cooperation with Tuskegee University to collaborate on efforts related to SNC's Dream Chaser. In August 2014, Lockheed Martin and Sierra Nevada Corporation unveiled the composite airframe of the Dream Chaser, which was used to conduct its first orbital launch in 2016. Internally the Dream Chaser program team is frequently referred to as the "Dream Team." The team includes well-known aerospace industry partners such as Lockheed Martin and United Launch Alliance, NASA centers and universities across the United States, small businesses such as Craig Technologies, as well as the European, German and Japanese space agencies. In September 2014, Sierra Nevada Corporation lost the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract to SpaceX and Boeing, which NASA chose as the two companies funded to develop systems to transport U.S. crews to and from the space station. Boeing won $4.2 billion and SpaceX won $2.6 billion to complete and certify their spacecraft by 2017. NASA deemed SNC's proposal less mature than SpaceX's or Boeing. In the selection statement, Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human exploration and operations directorate, explained the decision by stating that "a winged spacecraft is a more complex design and thus entails more developmental and certification challenges, and therefore may have more technical and schedule risk than expected", and "I consider SNC's design to be at the lowest level of maturity, with significantly more technical work and critical design decisions to accomplish.... SNC's proposal also has more schedule uncertainty." Director Mark Sirangelo said the team was "devastated", and called it "like a death in the family", and Washington Post said the corporation "entered a realm particular to the world of government contracting: that of the big-time corporate loser". The corporation filed a protest to the GAO against the selection, which was rejected. The Washington Post called the moves to preserve the program "straddling the fine line between faith and delusion, persistence and masochism". While the Dream Chaser was designed to carry passengers, they modified it for cargo and worked through Thanksgiving 2015 to meet a January 2016 bidding deadline. In January 2016, they were awarded a Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2) contract for resupply missions to the International Space Station between 2019 and 2024, guaranteeing a minimum of six launches. The corporation will use United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket as the launch vehicle for Dream Chaser's cargo configuration starting in 2022.

RocketMotorTwo and STPSat-5

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sierra Nevada Corporation

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sierra Nevada Corporation claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sierra Nevada Corporation before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sierra Nevada Corporation ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sierra Nevada Corporation

In research: Sierra Nevada Corporation appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sierra Nevada Corporation in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sierra Nevada Corporation is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Aerospace companies of the United States, American companies established in 1963, American entities subject to Chinese government sanctions, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sierra Nevada Corporation outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sierra Nevada Corporation in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sierra Nevada Corporation means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sierra Nevada Corporation out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sierra Nevada Corporation in simple terms?

Why does Sierra Nevada Corporation matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sierra Nevada Corporation?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sierra Nevada Corporation.