aerospace founded 1989 founder john s. langford iii headquarters manassas va usa number of locations 4 products unmanned aerial vehicles number of employees 468 1 website http www.aurora.aero aurora flight sciences is an american aviation aeronautics research company which primarily specializes in the design and construction of special purpose unmanned aerial vehicles . aurora has been established for 20 years and their headquarters is at the manassas airport in manassas va. contents 1 history 2 aircraft produced 2.1 proposal 3 references 4 external links history edit 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 . aircraft produced edit perseus poc perseus a theseus perseus b chiron marsflyer 2 goldeneye 100 goldeneye 50 3 goldeneye 80 4 excalibur 5 orion sunlight eagle odysseus skate suas lightningstrike vtol x plane proposal edit antonov an 72 for united states air force advanced composite cargo aircraft acca lost out to lockheed martin x 55 . references edit https www.sbir.gov sbc aurora flight sciences corporation ares mars scout mission proposal platform . marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov . retrieved 2013 12 26 . goldeneye 50 gets airworthiness certificate aerospace daily & defense report june 19 2007 . retrieved on august 25 2009 . morris jefferson goldeneye 80 uav gearing up for second flight aviationweek.com december 7 2006 . retrieved on august 25 2009 . hovering hybrid page 36 . aviation week & space technology july 20 2009 . external links edit aurora home page retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title aurora flight sciences & oldid 708273958 categories aerospace companies of the united states navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 4 march 2016 at 17 19 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view