Scott Nicholas
The U.S. Army wants to partner with Manassas, Virginia-based Aurora Flight Sciences to develop technologies that will work to increase the speed, endurance payload capacity of unmanned vertical lift platforms.
Rajneesh Singh, acting division chief at the Army Research Laboratory’s vehicle technology directorate, said in a statement published Tuesday both parties seek to initiate the project through a cooperative research and development agreement.
“We’ll identify individual areas for each party to contribute and then develop a CRADA mechanism to identify individual responsibilities,” Singh added.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded a contract to Aurora to create a prototype of the company’s LightningStrike unmanned aircraft system designed to take off and land vertically.
Aurora also currently develops an autonomous flight system that can be retrofitted to U.S. Marine Corps and Navy aircraft platforms.
