Aurora's Solar Powered Powered UAS Can 'Fly Indefinitely'

Aurora Flight Sciences Odysseus. Image courtesy of Aurora

Boeing-owned Aurora Flight Sciences' new Odysseus unmanned aircraft system (UAS) "can effectively fly indefinitely," according to the company, capable of long-term flying.

The Odysseus is a high-altitude autonomous platform that runs on solar power. It can persistently remain on station to monitor and transmit data in pursuit of research efforts. Aurora said it has a greater year-round global operating zone than any other vehicle in its class.

"Aurora was founded by the idea that technology can provide powerful solutions to all of these problems," said Aurora President and CEO John Langford Wednesday in a news release. "Odysseus offers the same kind of capability, which is why it is capable and necessary platform for researchers. Odysseus will indeed change the world. "

The UAS, named for the Greek king and eponymous hero of Homer's "Odyssey," is a successor to the Daedalus project, itself named for the Greek craftsman who built his wings. Daedalus was an aircraft built by Langford and colleagues at MIT in the 1980s, which executed a record for human-powered flight with a 72-mile journey between Greek and Greek islands of Crete and Santorini in 1982.

Langford called Odysseus "an idea terminal out of Daedalus," which empowers the trainer's persistence with its lessons.

Aurora lists a range of missions across communications, connectivity and intelligence as potential applications for Odysseus, but its primary function is climate research. It can measure vegetation, ground moisture, ice coverage and flow rates in the time and over time, and the fact that it's solar-powered makes it a cheaper potential solution than something like a satellite.

Autonomy has been a big focus for Boeing. The manufacturer acquired experimental UAS company Aurora last year as part of its focus on the subject. This year, in pursuit of the same agenda, it agreed to lease space at MIT, the school that created Daedalus.

As announced by Aviation Week's Graham Warwick, Odysseus 'first flight is scheduled for April 23, 2019, the 31-year anniversary of Daedalus' flight over the Aegean Sea.