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2018-02-01

Next-Generation Persistence Surveillance With Orion UAS

Last month, the U.S. Air Force awarded a new $48 million contract to Aurora Flight Sciences for the continued development of the Orion Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). Orion is a medium-altitude persistent UAS with unmatched endurance, range, mission capacity and affordability, boasting rapid fielding of next generation technologies.

On July 1, 2015 Aurora received official notification from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) that Orion had set the world record for the longest flight by a remotely controlled UAV. The record was awarded for the aircraft’s 80-hour, 2-minute and 52-second flight that took place on December 5-8, 2014. The previous record for the same class of unmanned aircraft was just over 30 hours, set by a Global Hawk in 2001.

Orion’s game-changing persistence has enabled it to perform a continuous five-day mission carrying over 1,000 lbs of mission payloads in a significantly extended area of coverage. Indeed, a single Orion UAS can complete two days of persistent surveillance when operating from bases over 3,000 miles away from the target of interest.

The combination of mission capability and flexibility enables the warfighter to adapt quickly to new challenges and dynamic conditions, breaking previous persistency paradigms to enable missions never before thought possible. Orion’s affordability as a system ensures the realization of next-gen technologies without putting additional strain on budgets.

Innovative Lightweight Design

The Orion Medium-Altitude, Long-Endurance Unmanned Aircraft combines a highly efficient aerodynamic design with lightweight construction and efficient heavy fuel propulsion. It enables over three times the endurance and range of current ISR platforms.

The Orion takes on a conventional aircraft shape which incorporates a centralized fuselage assembly, monoplane wings and a traditional tail unit. The fuselage appears quite oversized for accommodating mission equipment, avionics, fuel stores and the like, but it also showcases slab sides and an aerodynamically-refined nose section.

The wings are straight, flexible and of a long span, designed as a single-piece carbon-fiber appendage sitting high atop the fuselage to generate sufficient lift and help in clearance for the engines. One engine nacelle is slung under each wing unit and set close to each fuselage side.

The fuselage then tapers upwards heading aft to a rounded stem holding the tail unit, while the tail unit consists of a single vertical rudder and a pair of forward-set horizontal planes. The undercarriage is only partially retractable, where the single-wheeled nose leg retracts rearwards into the fuselage.

Meanwhile, the single-wheeled main legs are fixed in place and its wheels are shrouded over in aerodynamic covers. Propulsion takes place through 2 x Austro Engine AE300 series turbo-diesels, constituting a fuel efficient solutions for the aircraft’s size by allowing the Orion to consume traditional aviation fuel.

Origins and Testing

Orion started in 2006 as a hydrogen-fueled “high-altitude, long-loiter” (HALL) demonstrator for the US Army, powered by a single Ford truck engine modified to burn hydrogen. The same powerplant is used on Boeing’s twin-engined hydrogen-fueled Phantom Eye, for which Aurora built the composite wing.

In 2008, Aurora then approached the United States Air force to interest them in a medium-class version of its Orion product, which it had modified to operate under conventional diesel propulsion. Having garnered sufficient interest, the USAF granted a developmental contract for further research into the Orion MALE.

Orion subsequently morphed into a conventionally powered MALE UAV for the Air Force Research Laboratory, demonstrating the affordability, autonomy, reliability and capability of an aircraft able to stay aloft for five days. It has thus reduced the manpower burden and operating cost of Predator-class vehicles.

The Orion undertook its first publicized flight on August 24th, 2013 without its intended mission payload. The exercise spanned 3 hours 31 minutes and reached an altitude of 8,000 feet (mean sea level), paving the way for more ambitious testing to come.

In 2015, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), Lt. Gen. Robert Otto was clear that the service did not have a requirement for an aircraft with more endurance. However, by January 2016 the announcement was made that the Orion was now placed to compete for a new ISR UAV requirement to coexist with the in-service Predator and Reaper fleets.

At last, in April 2017, the Orion appeared positioned to contend for a role in the “Trump Border Wall program”, particularly in monitoring activities over water in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean regions.

In addition, the Orion is being proposed to the Department of Homeland Security for marine border protection, while Aurora is teaming up with Big Safari to develop a Block 1 version of its aircraft for limited production. Moreover, Otto’s successor, Lt. Gen. VeraLinn “Dash” Jamieson said that the service intends to release an “ISR flight plan” in 2018, articulating the Air Force’s technology, systems architecture and manpower requirements from now until 2035.

Specialist Military Scope

Orion is expected to offer much in the way of autonomy and modular payload functionality, owing to which the aircraft will be utilized for the surveillance / reconnaissance / intelligence gathering role as in the Global Hawk. Its payload will reflect this limited scope through use of specialized camera, optics, sensors and collection equipment.

Hence, the Orion is not intended to be an armed “Hunter-Killer” UAV/UCAV. Instead, the program goal is to offer excellent endurance with payload-carrying capabilities comparable to the proven General Atomics Predator series, which has provided a useful service to American forces operating over Afghanistan and Iraq.

Rapid Mission Flexibility

The mission payloads accepted by the Orion UAS are analogous to an airborne ISR ‘truck’, requiring the ability to deploy over 2,600 lbs of payload and 11kW of dedicated payload power (expandable to 22kW). It has over 146 cubic feet of internal installation volume, not including pods and flexible payload mounting provisions, with large external surface areas available for installation of antenna.

The typical UAS requires design modification for new mission configurations, possibly leading to costly block or variant solutions that can take years of development, integration and test before reaching the field. On the Orion platform, sensors and weapons can be rapidly removed, reloaded, replaced and integrated in as little as 24 hours based on the prioritized tasks and missions.

Remote Location Capabilities

The Orion UAS combines a highly efficient aerodynamic design with lightweight construction and efficient heavy fuel propulsion, enabling over five times the endurance and range of current ISR platforms. This game-changing persistence enables a single aircraft to perform a continuous five-day mission while carrying over 1,000 lbs of mission payloads, so allowing the warfighter to extend the area of coverage significantly. A single Orion UAS can perform two days of persistent surveillance when operating from bases over 3,000 miles away from the target of interest.

Enhanced Warfighter Affordability

Orion’s revolutionary persistence enables the platform to spend more time on the target of interest, drastically reducing the time required to transit to and from target locations. This increase in mission availability lowers the level of aircraft, personnel, fuel, maintenance and support logistics needed to perform mission sets. It also cuts operational costs to less than one third of what is achievable using currently deployed assets.

Orion’s increased range also allows operation from regional bases safely removed from forward basing, which further lowers the security, logistical support and fuel delivery costs. This capacity both protects soldiers and enables operations in regions previously incompatible with the UAS.

Optimized Strategic Operations

Generous payload accommodations and optimized flight profile make the Orion UAS ideal for deploying ISR sensors, including today’s state of the art Full Motion Video (FMV), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The Orion also benefits from tomorrow’s sensor technologies, including Wide Area Airborne Surveillance (WAAS), hyperspectral imaging, Dismount Moving Target Indication (DMTI), network hubs and foliage penetration radars.

Moreover, accommodations for increased onboard processing will enable Orion to generate more relevant information for the warfighter and alleviate bottlenecks in bandwidth by supporting multi-intelligence sensor fusion and enhanced processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) of mission data. A radius of operation exceeding 4,000 miles will allow access to areas previously prohibitive for persistent operations, including geopolitical hotspots in the Middle East and Asia, anti-piracy along the coast of Africa, drug traffic monitoring deep into Central and South America, and emergency responses to remote island nations.

Unrivalled Defense Asset

The Orion UAS empowers the warfighter and emergency responders to adapt quickly to rapidly evolving global challenges. It opens up a new realm of possibilities for persistent missions including wide area ISR, ad-hoc communication networks and relay, ballistic missile defense (BMD), maritime domain awareness, disaster relief and persistent strike.

Orion’s open architecture will also assure interoperability with other systems, driving the affordability of mission upgrades and lowering the time from conception to operational deployment of new capabilities. In adding capability without increasing costs, Orion is an ideal model for a range of the new efficiency initiatives.

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