Aurora Flight Sciences (AFS) is an American aviation and aeronautics research subsidiary of Boeing that specializes in special-purpose unmanned aerial vehicles. Aurora's headquarters is at Manassas Regional Airport.
History
In 1989, AFS was founded in Alexandria, Virginia, as a follow-on to the MIT Daedalus project.
In 1991, its first aircraft was the Perseus proof of concept (POC) built for NASA which first flew at NASA Dryden. It was followed by two Perseus As and one Perseus B – built for the NASA ERAST Program. A twin engine Theseus was also built.
In 1995, Aurora joined the Global Hawk team to build composite fuselage components and tail assemblies of the RQ-4 for Northrop Grumman and the USAF.
In 2002, a demonstration aircraft Mars High Altitude Deployment Demonstrator was flown from an altitude of 100,000 feet to simulate the low density of the Martian atmosphere. Aurora was involved in NASA programs studying how to fly on Mars