Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter

A promotional image from Sierra Nevada Corp. for the planned launch of the Dream Chaser on an Atlas V from Kennedy Space Center. Credit: SNC.

Commercial space company Sierra Nevada Corporation and NASA announced plans today to launch an orbital test flight of the Dream Chaser vehicle in 2016, and that they plan to use processing facilities at Kennedy Space Center as well as land the vehicle at NASAs Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida.

Today were very proud to announce that we have now formally negotiated our orbital spaceflight, said Mark Sirangelo, the head of Sierra Nevada Space Systems. We have acquired an Atlas V rocket and established a launch date of November 1, 2016, so in a little over two years from now and were going to be taking our vehicle to space on the board one of the best rockets that has ever been designed, the Atlas V.

The mission will be automated and unmanned, but if all goes well Sierra Nevada hopes to have a human flight by sometime in 2017.

The Dream Chaser space plane atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Image Credit: SNC

The seven-passenger vehicle looks like a mini-space shuttle and is about (meters long (29.5 feet) with a wingspan of 7 meters 22.9 feet).

Sirangelo said they will be doing Dream Chaser pre- and post-flight processing at KSC along with Lockheed Martin at the Operations and Checkout (O&C) facility at KSC. The O&C is an historic facility which was originally built to process Gemini and Apollo era spacecraft. After significant upgrades by NASA and the State of Florida, it is currently being used by Lockheed Martin Space Systems to develop, assemble and test NASAs Orion spacecraft.

The 2017 flights will be the first time an Atlas V will be used to send people to space since the Mercury program. The landing at the SLF will be the first landing of a space vehicle there since the final space shuttle mission, STS-135, landed there on July 21, 2011.

That is way too long (between landings), said Steve Lindsey, former NASA astronaut and now Sierra Nevadas Dream Chaser program manager, and we intend to do something about it and do it very soon We want to continue the long tradition that was started on the Florida space coast so many years ago.

More here:

Sierra Nevada Dreamchaser Will Launch on First Orbital Flight Test in November 2016