Aurora Flight Sciences is an American aviation and aeronautics research subsidiary of

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

which primarily specializes in the design and construction of special-purpose

Unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

s. Aurora has been established for 20+ years and their headquarters is at the Manassas Regional Airport in Manassas, Virginia.

History

In 1989, the company was founded in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of downtown Washington, D.C. In 2020, the population was 159,467. ...

, as a follow-on to the MIT Daedalus project. In 1991, its first aircraft was the Perseus proof of concept (POC) built for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

which first flew at

NASA Dryden The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical rese ...

. It was followed by two Perseus As and one Perseus B which were all built for the

NASA ERAST Program The Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology, or ERAST program was a NASA program to develop cost-effective, slow-flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can perform long-duration science missions at altitudes above . The project ...

. A twin engine Theseus was also built. In 1995, Aurora joined the Global Hawk team and continues to build composite fuselage components and tail assemblies of the RQ-4 for

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tec ...

and the

USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

. In 2002, a demonstration aircraft was flown from an altitude of 100,000 feet to simulate the low density of the martian atmosphere. Aurora has been involved in several NASA programs studying how to fly an aircraft on the planet

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

. In 2008, the DARPA Vulture aimed for an UAV that could stay aloft for at least five years in the

stratosphere The stratosphere () is the second layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is an atmospheric layer composed of stratified temperature layers, with the warm layers of air ...

, carrying a payload: Aurora proposed three drones taking off separately then joining up in flight, to form an efficient flat wing at night, and folding into a Z for the best solar energy collection in daylight. In 2009, as Aurora has developed its own line of small vertical take-off UAVs known as the

Aurora Goldeneye The Aurora Goldeneye is a reconnaissance UAV under development in the United States during the first decade of the 21st century. It is a ducted fan design in roughly the same class as the Sikorsky Cypher II. This UAV was built under a DARPA contr ...

, the third variant of this family, the GoldenEye-80, was first flown publicly at Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's Unmanned Systems North America trade show. On 5 October 2017, Boeing announced that it would be acquiring Aurora Flight Sciences. In April 2018, as

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Ad ...

allowed Aurora to transition government-funded technology for commercial applications, the tilt-wing XV-24A Lightning Strike and its distributed propulsion could be reused for an electric commercial

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) ...

along its lift-and-cruise prototype with vertical flight rotors and cruise fixed propellers, unveiled in 2017. Aurora plans multiple demonstrators controlled centrally by 2020 and a piloted air taxi by 2023 with autonomy later depending on regulation. In spring 2019, Aurora plans to fly a High-Altitude Long Endurance drone powered by

solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.Odysseus.

Facilities

Aurora has four facilities that each have their own focus. Corporate Headquarters and Engineering are in Manassas, Virginia. A manufacturing center was opened in

Fairmont, West Virginia Fairmont is a city in and county seat of Marion County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 18,313 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Fairmont Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Marion County, a ...

, in 1994, being moved to Bridgeport, West Virginia, in 2000. Another manufacturing facility was opened in

Starkville, Mississippi Starkville is a city in, and the county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. Th ...

, in 2005 before being moved to the nearby Golden Triangle Regional Airport in Columbus, Mississippi, in 2007. A research and development center was opened in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most ...

in 2005 where Aurora now develops a line of micro air vehicles.

Aircraft produced

* Perseus POC * Perseus A * Theseus * Perseus B * Chiron * MarsFlyer * GoldenEye 100 * GoldenEye 50 * GoldenEye 80 * Excalibur * Centaur Optionally-Piloted Aircraft (OPA) * Orion * SunLight Eagle * Odysseus * Skate SUAS * Tactical Autonomous Aerial Logistics System (TALOS) ** H-6U Unmanned Little Bird ** Bell 206 ** UH-1H UAV

Proposed aircraft

* Aurora D8 for

by the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

- currently under development. A flight test will be conducted by 2021. * Virgin Galactic generation 2 mothership, for the next-generation Delta-class spaceplane, expected for 2025.

Cancelled aircraft

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army S ...

Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA) - lost out to

Lockheed Martin X-55 The Lockheed Martin X-55 Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA) is an experimental twinjet transport aircraft. It is intended to demonstrate new air cargo-carrier capabilities using advanced composite materials. A project of the United Stat ...

. * The Aurora XV-24 LightningStrike was the selected proposal for the

VTOL X-Plane The Vertical Take-Off and Landing Experimental Aircraft (VTOL X-Plane) program is an American research project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The goal of the program is to demonstrate a VTOL aircraft design t ...

program, cancelled in April 2018.

Other products

* Robotic Copilothttps://www.aurora.aero/robotic_copilot/ Robotic Copilot

References

External links

Aurora home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aurora Flight Sciences Unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturers of the United States Technology companies established in 1989 Manufacturing companies established in 1989 1989 establishments in Virginia Manassas, Virginia Manufacturing companies based in Virginia Boeing mergers and acquisitions 2017 mergers and acquisitions