| Industry | Aerospace |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder(s) | John S. Langford III |
| Headquarters | Manassas, VA, USA |
| Number of locations | 4 |
| Products | Unmanned Aircraft |
| Employees | 350 |
| Website | http://www.aurora.aero |
Aurora Flight Sciences specializes in the design and construction of unmanned aircraft. Aurora has been established for 20+ years and their headquarters is at the Manassas Airport in Manassas, VA.
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The company was founded in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1989 as a follow on to the MIT Daedalus Project. The first aircraft was the Perseus proof of concept (POC) built for NASA which first flew in 1991 at NASA Dryden. It was followed by two Perseus As and one Perseus B which were all built for NASA's ERAST program. 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 and the United States Air Force.
Aurora has been involved in several NASA programs studying how to fly an aircraft on the planet Mars. A demonstration aircraft was flown in 2002 from an altitude of 100,000' to simulate the low density of the martian atmosphere.
Aurora has developed its own line of small vertical take-off UAVs known as GoldenEye. The third variant of this family, the GoldenEye-80, was first flown publicly at AUVSI's 2009 Unmanned Systems North America trade show.
Aurora has four facilities that each have their own focus. Corporate Headquarters and Engineering are in Manassas, VA. A manufacturing center was opened in Fairmont, WV in 1994. It was moved to Bridgeport, WV in 2000. Another manufacturing facility was opened in Starkville, MS in 2005. In 2007 it was moved to the nearby Golden Triangle Regional Airport in Columbus, MS. A research and development center was opened in Cambridge, MA in 2005 where Aurora now develops a line of micro air vehicles.
In August 2010, Aurora announced that its Orion UAV would start flight tests before the end of 2010; the Orion would offer "extreme persistence".[1]