TBC
AURORA PAYLOADS
Aurora's Ethos:
Fly daily.
Move faster
Progress is fastest when ideas are tested early and often. Aurora brings this paradigm shift to the access of high altitudes and speeds.
The resources once required for a single, disposable launch can now yield a campaign of dozens of flights. For the first time, you can deploy, retrieve, and redeploy with a turn- around measured in hours.
CUSTOMERS AND PARTNERS
TRUSTED PARTNERS WORLDWIDE
AWARDS
Recent SDA Payload Customer Mission
NEXT-GEN AEROSPACE
Building The Highest Performance Aircraft Ever to Go To Space
Dawn’s rocket-powered aircraft are designed to surpass the altitude and speed limits of traditional air-breathing aircraft by not relying on the atmosphere to generate thrust.
These aircraft will be the first to achieve high-cadence and low-cost access to airspace too high for traditional aircraft but too low for satellites, thereby opening up a new frontier in aerospace and research.
PARTNERS
Our Collaborative Network
Dawn Aerospace collaborates with industry leaders to drive advancements in space technology and exploration.
MISSION PROFILES
Suborbital
Profile
The Suborbital Profile is a mission profile tailored to reach space. This profile maximizes time in microgravity, as well as pointing time for optical payloads.
Specific values on microgravity and pointing times are detailed in Section 2.2. The key phases of flight are outlined on the Suborbital diagram.
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Max Alt: 100+ km
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Approx. Flight Duration: 30 minutes
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Max. Microgravity Time: 127 seconds
Suborbital
MISSIONS AND PAYLOADS
Aurora is built around a simple philosophy: Fly rapidly, regularly, repeatedly.
Our experience is that progress is fastest when ideas are tested early and often. Aurora brings a paradigm shift to the access of high altitudes and speeds. The effort and cost once spent preparing for a single sounding rocket launch can now yield a campaign with dozens of flights.
For the first time, you can test, learn, iterate, and repeat. Twice a day.
From Earth to Space
Twice a Day.
Aurora Vehicle Overview
M 3.5
1st SUPERSONIC FLIGHT
100 KM
MAX ALTITUDE
100
FLIGHTS IN A YEAR
10 KG
MAX PAYLOAD WEIGHT (22 LBS)
AIRCRAFT-LIKE OPERATIONS
Taking off from conventional runways, the Aurora carries payloads up to 10 kg to the Kármán line, before gliding safely to land.
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Aircraft - Fully reusable and inherently fault- tolerant. For example, if thrust is lost, Aurora can glide home and land safely with your payload intact.
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Infrastructure - Operates from existing airports and spaceports. All systems are road- transportable, enabling suborbital access from runways closer to you.
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Airspace - Certified as an aircraft, Aurora integrates with air traffic in controlled airspace. This allows for more frequent and versatile flights than rockets.
RESEARCH
Enabling Breakthroughs Missions Across Key Industries
Atmospheric Science:
Measure upper-atmosphere composition, climate dynamics, and weather phenomena. Repeatably target specific layers and locations to build more accurate models.
Microgravity Testing & Manufacturing: Access over 100 seconds of high-quality microgravity for experiments and small- scale manufacturing. Refine your experiments with consistent, repeatable microgravity conditions.
Technology Development:
Accelerate your hardware development by testing and qualifying systems in a representative flight environment. Reduce program risk through flight heritage and demonstrated airworthiness.
Domain Awareness:
Aurora’s payload hatch can accommodate various multispectral instruments. Payloads can be pointed to targets above and below the horizon for up to 80 seconds.
DEFENSE
Target Presentation
Dawn’s Aurora spaceplane provides novel capabilities such as rapid deployment, high-altitude performance, and safe return.
This extends to mission capabilities such as pseudo-satellite capabilities, on-demand high-altitude observations, and target presentation. Its ability to replicate demanding flight profiles offers a valuable platform for safe, reusable testing without the risks or costs of traditional alternatives.
Boost Glide
The Boost-Glide Profile is optimised to reach high Mach numbers within the atmosphere for supersonic and target presentation use-cases. With this profile, the Aurora can reach speeds up to Mach 3.7 and perform a range of maneuvers in the supersonic regime. The key phases of flight are shown above.
DEFENSE
Target Presentation
Dawn’s Aurora spaceplane provides novel capabilities such as rapid deployment, high-altitude performance, and safe return.
This extends to mission capabilities such as pseudo-satellite capabilities, on-demand high-altitude observations, and target presentation. Its ability to replicate demanding flight profiles offers a valuable platform for safe, reusable testing—without the risks or costs of traditional alternatives.
OUR SERVICES
Payload Customers
Aurora offers a new way to access the upper atmosphere and near space — fast, flexible, and reusable. With up to 10 kg payload capacity and up to 114 sec of microgravity, it’s ideal for experiments in microgravity research, semiconductor testing, life sciences, atmospheric sensing, and technology validation.
Payload Specifications
Mass, volume, interfaces, environments, ops profile. Link to full specs.
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Markets & Applications
Mass, volume, interfaces, environments, ops profile. Link to full specs.
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Example Missions
Scout Space - SDA Payload
Johns Hopkins APL - Earth Observation
Cal Poly - Space tech dev.
INDUSTRY COLLABORATION
Our Collaborative Network
Dawn Aerospace collaborates with industry leaders and innovative startups to drive advancements in space technology and exploration. By fostering strong partnerships, we are accelerating the pace of innovation and collectively shaping the future of space.
Civil Aviation Authority New Zealand
GLOBAL SPACEPORT
ALLIANCE
FAA
ARTEMIS
Group