(Bloomberg) -- Sierra Space Corp. is making preliminary plans to go public and exploring possible acquisitions as the company drives toward debuting its long-awaited cargo spaceplane, potentially by the summer. 

The Colorado-based company has begun laying the groundwork internally for an initial public offering, Chief Executive Officer Tom Vice told Bloomberg News in an interview on Thursday. Sierra hasn’t settled on timing but would take the step “when the market looks like it’ll give us the right credit for valuation.”

“We want access to the public markets,” Vice said. “We’ve been working for a year and a half to make sure that we are public company ready.”

The comments, ahead of a media event to kick off flight testing of its Dream Chaser spaceplane at a NASA facility in Sandusky, Ohio, suggest the company is moving closer to an offering after exploring options to raise capital over the past several years. Vice also hinted at “inorganic add-ons” and “consolidation activity” — CEO speak for mergers and acquisitions — to support its portfolio of products that also includes satellites and space stations.  

Sierra, whose valuation climbed to more than $5 billion as of September after its latest private capital injection, was formed by defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp. in 2021.  

Sierra Space is racing this year to launch Dream Chaser — essentially a miniaturized space shuttle that launches strapped to a rocket and lands on a runway — to ferry cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. 

At the same time, though, Vice and a leadership team and board built up of former Boeing Co. executives including Greg Smith, Tim Keating and Troy Lahr, have taken steps to control costs, including layoffs last year. The company’s president, Janet Kavandi, left the company in December, Vice confirmed.  

A successful Dream Chaser flight would “give us another data point that the board will take into consideration as we look at a potential IPO,” Vice said.

Last month, Sierra won a $740 million contract to develop 18 missile warning and tracking satellites for the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency. 

The company is also building inflatable space stations, including one called Orbital Reef in partnership with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin LLC for operations by the end of the decade. In late 2023, CNBC and Reuters reported that tensions had flared between Blue Origin and Sierra Space over the direction of Orbital Reef and that the two companies could part ways in the future. When asked if Sierra Space was still committed to working with Blue Origin, Vice said “we are absolutely committed.”

“I think the relationship that we have with Blue Origin and Orbital Reef has always been extremely good,” Vice said.

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