Demand for drones drives Manassas company's growth

by Brett Lieberman
for Virginia Business
January 2006

When commanders on the ground in Iraq need to track potential targets without risking troops’ lives, they frequently send in a Global Hawk. The 47.6-foot long drone is capable of flying at altitudes of up to 65,000 feet for 35 hours, providing near real-time, high-resolution intelligence at night or in bad weather.

Though Aurora Flight Sciences started out manufacturing high-altitude vehicles for environmental research, these days the Manassas-based company is making a name for itself in one of the fastest-growing areas of military spending.

The potential uses of unmanned aerial drones for military operations and homeland security have created an enormous new market for the company since 9/11. The Defense Department, for example, is expected to spend $1.67 billion this year on drones. “It’s an exciting business and it’s just starting to take off,” says Kris Miller, vice president of business operations at Aurora, which builds about one-third of the exterior of each 32,250-pound Global Hawk, one of the most utilized drones in Iraq. Aurora is a subcontractor on the program for Northrop Grumman Corp.

Aurora has come a long way since its start in an Alexandria garage in 1989. Two years later, the privately held company moved to the Manassas Airport, where the city cut it a deal on a dilapidated hangar in exchange for reduced rent. Today, the company, which has 120 employees, is the airport’s largest tenant. Another 150 workers are employed at a manufacturing facility in Clarksburg, W.Va., and the company plans to open a research and development center in Cambridge, Mass.

Aurora finished last year with $43 million in revenues, and it expects that figure to climb to more than $50 million this year.

In the beginning, Aurora worked on global climate research and testing for NASA. As that market shrank and the defense market grew, it shifted gears, becoming a major subcontractor for Northrop Grumman.

But the company also is working on becoming a prime contractor with the GoldenEye-50. The device is an 18-pound drone that looks like a garbage can with wings. It is capable of taking off and landing vertically. Soldiers could use the drone, still in testing, to hover over a target or clandestinely drop a sensor ahead of troops. The mini-drone’s propellers are inside, making it safer and quieter for surveillance. It’s also capable of detecting chemicals, making it potentially useful on the battlefield or for homeland security.

Aurora also continues to work for NASA, developing a MarsFlyer, an airplane that could be used to fly over the surface of Mars as early as 2011. “Eventually this war will end,” says Miller. With that expectation, Aurora like other drone manufacturers is looking at other civil applications for the technology. A drone might be used, for example, to inspect pipelines or patrol borders, she says.

Aurora’s headquarters at the Manassas Regional Airport positions it close to key government agencies and contractors and also gives it plenty of room for growth.
The company has built a strong partnership with the city of Manassas that has been crucial to Aurora’s expansion. In the mid-1990s, it added a 35,000-square-foot hangar with a small manufacturing facility and high-altitude chambers that allow engineers to test engines at 45,000- to 60,000-foot altitudes.

Aurora expects to move by June into another 50,000-square-foot addition that is currently under construction. Like the last expansion, the work is being financed through bonds floated by the city’s industrial development authority. “Manassas airport has been a great airport, a great home and the city has been wonderful,” says Miller.

And for a company that took a shabby hangar at a little-known airport, Aurora’s been good for the airport, too. Besides becoming its biggest tenant, it has the coolest toys.