The US space agency NASA announced the awardees of its second round of Commercial Resupply Services (CRS2) contracts on Thursday. The contracts include cargo deliveries to and from the International Space Station (ISS) from 2017 till 2024.

Dream Chaser space plane developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation is unique as it can land on a traditional airline runway whereas mostly cargo ships splash down in the ocean or catch fire at the time of reentry.

The US space agency has shortlisted three companies for flying cargo to the International Space Station. In CRS-1, NASA gave SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract for twelve Dragon missions whereas Orbital got a $1.9 billion contract for eight Cygnus missions.

For ensuring the critical science, research and technology demonstrations onboard the ISS, the space agency awarded three cargo deals to the three American companies.

In 2013, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft made a debut during a 2013 demo flight, and carried out two more missions prior to 2014 when an Antares rocket exploded soon after liftoff.

As part of the new contract, both companies will resume sending spacecraft to ISS with flights starting in late 2019.

While speaking to Reuters, station chief scientist Julie Robinson said, “There are a lot of reasons to use animal studies to look at things like balance and sensory motor effects (of microgravity), and those are going to change so rapidly on return that we need to have the animals back right away”.

NASA’s space station program manager Kirk Shireman said that he has been ensuring that the Dream Chaser may land on numerous runways.

The Dream Chaser has taken some design cues from the Space Shuttle program, coming up with a sleek spaceplane design quite different from the Orbital Cygnus or SpaceX Dragon crafts, having quite traditional capsule designs.