Aurora Flight Sciences announced that the Centaur Optionally Piloted Aircraft (OPA) has begun its flight test program. The first fully-configured Centaur made its first flight on Saturday, January 22, 2011 from Aurora’s base at Manassas, Virginia. The flight crew for the first flight was Thomas Washington, serving as test director and pilot, and Jason Fine, serving as flight engineer. ”The first...
Aurora Flight Sciences announced today that its “Centaur” aircraft has received a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA. The Centaur product is being developed as an Optionally-Piloted Aircraft that can safely fly as a FAA-certificated aircraft for operations inside the National Airspace System with the ability to be reconfigured for robotic, unmanned operations when extended performance is needed or...
On November 22, 2010 Aurora Flight Sciences will unveil Orion, a flight vehicle demonstrator that will stay aloft for up to five days. The Orion rollout will take place at Aurora’s Columbus Mississippi facility. Orion was selected by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in late August to meet the objectives of the Medium Altitude Global ISR and Communications...
November 10, 2010) – On November 3rd, Aurora Flight Sciences’ Skate small unmanned aerial system (SUAS) was selected as the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) “Product of the Year.” In a special live audience vote, the Skate system beat out 15 other finalists from fields as diverse as smartphone applications and solid state lighting to be named as the...
CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – November 08, 2010) – Aurora Flight Sciences and its team members MIT and Pratt & Whitney were recently awarded a 2010 Breakthrough Award by Popular Mechanics for the D-series aircraft concept. The award was presented on October 5 at the Hearst Tower in New York City. The MIT/Aurora/Pratt & Whitney D-series aircraft was developed under NASA’s...
MANASSAS, VA– Aurora Flight Sciences is proud to announce that it has won the Aviation Week & Space Technology and Defense Technology International Suppliers’ Innovation Challenge for designing and building Boeing’s Phantom Eye wing. Aurora won the top honor as the “Overall Most Innovative Product” among eighty entries and also was selected as the winner of the “Less than...
Aurora Flight Sciences announced today that its “Orion” unmanned aircraft system has been competitively selected by the US Air Force Research Laboratory for the first phase of the Medium Altitude Global ISR and Communications (MAGIC) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) contract. MAGIC is a new start under the Department of Defense’s Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program to demonstrate 5-day...
MANASSAS, VA–(Marketwire – September 27, 2010) – Aurora Flight Sciences announced today that it has joined Change the Equation (CTEq), a CEO-led initiative to cultivate widespread literacy in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). CTEq will not only support the President’s Educate to Innovate campaign mission to increase private and philanthropic involvement in STEM education, but also will meet...
Aurora Flight Sciences has been awarded a contract by the United States Department of Defense to build an unmanned vehicle — the Orion Unmanned Aerial System — which is developed at Aurora’s Columbus facility — for the Medium Altitude Global ISR and Communications program, Republican U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran announced today. The vehicle, which reportedly can...
Slightly bigger than this space should show but an idea to keep an eye on. Aurora Flight Sciences announced today that the DA42M aircraft that will serve as its Optionally Piloted Vehicle (OPV) prototype has arrived at its Manassas, Virginia facility. The DA42M is a 4-place, twin-engine general aviation aircraft produced by Diamond Aircraft in Austria. The aircraft that...
