LOUISVILLE -- Images from space dominated the week and fired up imaginations all over again.

An unmanned capsule launched by a private company docked with the International Space Station 240 miles above Earth, exchanged cargo with the astronauts living there and then plummeted through the atmosphere into a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday morning.

The accomplishment was a first for the burgeoning commercial space sector and California-based SpaceX, helmed by 40-year-old South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk, was lauded worldwide for its success.

But just two days before the heralded return of SpaceX's Dragon capsule 560 miles off the coast of Baja California, a company much closer to home

Engineering Technician Richard Santos wipes down the surface on the Dream Chaser space vehicle at Sierra Nevada Space Systems in Louisville on May 31, 2012. ( MARK LEFFINGWELL )

Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems, headquartered on the Colorado Technology Center campus in Louisville, passed one of the most complex tests it has faced in its attempt to launch a seven-person orbital vehicle -- called the Dream Chaser -- into space by 2016. Known as a captive-carry test, the effort required the 40-foot-long and 25-foot-wide Dream Chaser to be lifted by an Erickson Air-Crane helicopter into the skies above Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport and put through a battery of tests measuring its aerodynamic flight performance.

Last week's successful result paves the way for the sleek space plane to undergo autonomous approach and landing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California this fall before finally heading skyward on an Atlas V rocket.

"We're really excited because after taking it on paper for many years, we're actually starting to fly the real thing that NASA is going to be taking to space," said Mark Sirangelo, who heads up Sierra Nevada's 230-employee space systems division in Louisville.

He doesn't begrudge SpaceX's day in the sun

In this image provided by NASA with clouds and land forming a backdrop, the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is grappled by the Canadarm2 robotic arm at the International Space Station on May 25. (AP Photo/NASA)

Read the original:

Big week for commercial space flight, big week for Louisville-built Dream Chaser