From The Archives: Erstwhile Orion

Seven years before the small company would be acquired by Boeing, Aurora Flight Sciences unveiled its Orion long-endurance uncrewed aircraft demonstrator at its Columbus, Missouri, plant on Nov. 22, 2010. 

The rollout of the first of three planned Orion demonstrators took place barely three months after the program was selected by the Air Force Research Laboratory for the first phase of the Medium-Altitude Global ISR and Communications (Magic) program. 

With a wingspan slightly longer than Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk at 132 ft., Orion was designed to stay aloft for 120 hr. at 20,000 ft.—five times longer than a General Atomics Predator—carrying a 1,000-lb. payload of sensors and dramatically reducing the on-station cost of providing persistent surveillance. 

First flight was expected by August 2011, but funding limitations pushed this milestone out another two years. 

Ultimately, the U.S. Air Force decided not to buy the system, citing budget constraints, hangar limitations given Orion’s size and the lack of an operational requirement for a multi-day ISR platform. 

Read the full issue dated November 29, 2010 | Aviation Week, and the article on page 22, "Unmanned Systems: Staying Power - Promise of reduced service cost is behind plans to demonstrate medium-altitude long-endurance UAV."

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