Aurora Odysseus

The Odysseus is a solar, High-Altitude Long Endurance drone developed by Aurora Flight Sciences and planned to fly in April 2019.

Development

In spring 2019, Aurora plans to fly a High-Altitude Long Endurance drone powered by solar cells and batteries, Odysseus, to study the Earth atmosphere or as a military pseudo-satellite for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The 74.1m (243ft) wide carbon fibre aircraft should weigh less than a Smart Car, can carry a 25kg (55lb) payload with 250W provided during several months of endurance. It would compete with the Airbus Zephyr ordered by the UK Ministry of Defence and visited by the U.S. Army Futures Command, the BAE Systems-Prismatic Ltd UAV, and the AeroVironment-SoftBank telecommunications UAV.^[1] The bendable wing has fiberglass upper skin panels an plastic film undersides, three tails and six propellers, with roll controlled by the outboard tails. It uses available, low-risk, lithium polymer batteries and gallium arsenide thin-film solar cells and first test flights are powered by batteries only.^[2] It is designed to stay day and night above 65,000 ft (20,000 m) up to three months at latitudes up to 20°. First flight is planned for April 2019 in Puerto Rico, before investigating ozone depletion in the summer over the US Midwest. ^[3]