Speed:
Maximum operational speeds are reported to be in the range of Mach 5-8.

Length:
About 110 feet (33.5 meters)

Wingspan:
About 60 feet (18.2 meters)

Ceiling:
May have an operational altitude of 150,000 feet (28.4 miles) or higher.

Design:
The Aurora aircraft has an airframe like a flattened American football, about 110 ft long and 60 ft wide, smoothly contoured, and covered in ceramic tiles similar to those used on the Space Shuttle which seem to be coated with "a crystalline patina indicative of sustained exposure to high temperature ... a burnt carbon odor exudes from the surface."

Engine:
Several witnesses have heard a distinctive low frequency rumble followed by a very loud roar, which could be the exotic engine used by a Mach 6 (4,400 miles per hour) aircraft. Experts say a methane-burning combined cycle ramjet engine (uniting rocket and ramjet designs) could have been developed to power Aurora. Observers in California have also reported seeing a large aircraft with a delta-wing shape and foreplanes. Some think this could be an airborne launch platform for satellite-delivery rockets or even the Aurora, before its more advanced engines were developed.

Power comes from conventional jet engines in the lower fuselage, fed by inlet ducts which open in the tiled surface. Once at supersonic speed, the engines are shut down, and Pulse Detonation Wave Engines take over, ejecting liquid methane or liquid hydrogen onto the fuselage, where the fuel mist is ignited, possibly by surface heating.

A vast amount of rumours, conjecture, eye-witness sightings and other evidence point to an aircraft, funded as a Black Project, built by the Lockheed Skunk Works, operating out of the Groom Lake / Area 51 location. Always at night, never photographed, officially denied... This is the Aurora Project. No matter what speculation takes place, it seems the secrets that lie beyond the mountains of the Nevada desert will remain until the US military decides otherwise.

Power Plant:
At subsonic speeds power comes from conventional jet engines in the lower fuselage, fed by inlet ducts which open in the tiled surface. Once at supersonic speed, there are three possibilities for the propulsion that carries the plane up to its mach 5+ speed:

• PWDE (Pulse Detonation Wave Engines) - Essentially, liquid methane or liquid hydrogen is ejected onto the fuselage, where the fuel mist is ignited, possibly by surface heating. The PDE Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) operates by creating a liquid hydrogen detonation inside a specially designed chamber when the aircraft is traveling beyond the speed of sound. When traveling at such speeds, a thrust wall (the aircraft is traveling so fast that a molecules in the air are rapidly pushed aside near the nose of the aircraft which in essence becomes a wall)is created in the front of the aircraft. When the detonation takes place, the the aircraft's thrust wall is pushed forward. This all is repeated to propel the aircraft. From the ground, the jet stream looks like "rings on a rope". Another reader thinks this method is very suspicious. He goes on "a serious problem with the SR-71 and other high-speed aircraft is excessive skin heating. The last thing you want is to add combustion at or near the surface." Please click HERE for our page about PDWE's.

   

• Ramjet - A reader points out that there is "a second possible power plant design, the Combined Cycle Ramjet Engine. Essentially, it is a rocket until it goes supersonic. At that point the rocket nozzles are withdrawn and the engines run as ramjets up to Mach 4-6. With a few minor modifications to the shape of the combustion housing, you could soup the power plant up to a scramjet, which could see speeds up to and beyond Mach 8. The fuel for this power plant could be liquid methane or methylcyclohexane, plus liquid oxygen as an oxidizer in the primary 'rocket' stage. Further data on this power plant is available through Popular Science Magazine, March 1993 issue. "However another reader feels that a ramjet is not a possible propulsion source because "the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) was cancelled in large part due to the inability to solve the materials problems with the proposed supersonic ramjets. I don't think there has been enough progress, even in the black world to solve these problems. Further, RAMJET doesn't leave doughnuts on a rope."

   

• Regular Pulsejet - Pulsejets uses the forward speed of the engine and the inlet shape to compress the incoming air, then shutters at the inlet close while fuel is ignited in the combustion chamber and the pressure of the expanding gases force the jet forward. The shutters open and the process repeats itself at a high frequency. This results in the buzzing drone for which the pulsejet missile is named: the buzzbomb. A reader points out that "pulsejets can be cooled to solve the materials problems of supersonic ramjets. They could also generate doughnuts on a rope although this is speculation as I am unaware of any previous actual tests at high altitude." Please click HERE for our page about pulsejets.

• Turbo Rocket Jet - An AAP reader named Daniel Murray gave us this possible description and image of another propultion method.
  
  
  
  This is a conceptional drawing of AURORA's engines. Although many of us Area 51 enthusiast believe that the AURORA'S engines are Ramjets or Pulse Detonation Wave Engines but I have reasons to believe otherwise. There is a new hype in the engine business. Cost effective, multi purpose engines. An engine that can fly in the atmosphere as well in space wile being completely reusable (or like a conventional jet which doesn't need its engines replaced every flight). The TRJ or Turbo Rocket Jet engine uses an internal rocket motor (Hydrogen and Oxygen fueled). The elongated combustion chamber allows a set of turbine blades which turn the power shaft. The power shaft runs the length of the engine from tip to tail. The fan and compressor blades are powered by the rockets turbines. The compressors compress the incoming air into a shaft were the fuel injectors and ignition nodes are located. The fuel is mixed with the air (like a conventional jet engine) and then is ignited by a high amp and voltage electrical arc that fires from one side of the shaft to the opposite. The evenly ignited mixture allows for better fuel economy. The ignited and expanded gases rush out of the shaft to an afterburner, and then are released out of the end of the engine. The great thing about this engine is that it can be partially shut down (the fan and compression blades) and used only on the rocket engines power. Also the Jet engine part of the engine can turn over the power shaft by itself. So for only low powered flights or descends the engine's rocket motor does not need to be initiated. The jet engine section will use regular jet fuel, or even hydrogen. Hydrogen will most likely be used, because then the'll be no separate fuel tanks. The drawing I have included is conceptional only and may have few parts that differ slightly from the actual engine.

Armament:
Although it has been rumored that the Aurora is equipped with the capability of carrying air-to-ground armaments, it is unlikely that the aircraft is designed for, or able to, support armaments. It is likely the plane is equipped for reconnaissance only.

There has been some debate about this though, as there was a Phoenix Air to Air missile that was designed to be carried in the F-12 (Basically a later interceptor version of the SR-71). This missile can only be carried by the F-12, the F-111 and the F-14 Tomcat. This missile might also be usable on the Aurora.

Mission:
High-altitude, high-speed, short-notice reconnaissance.

Contractor:
It is rumored that the Aurora was designed and built by Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co., the same company who built the SR-71.

The SR-71 has served as one of the only aircraft capable of performing a mobile reconnaissance mission. Although satellites are useful in this role, the SR-71 had the advantage of going wherever and whenever an "eye-in-the-sky" is needed. In spite of this funding for the SR-71 program was canceled in 1989 and SR-71 flights ceased.

Given the importance of the role of the SR-71, and the fact that it is the only plane capable of performing that role, it has been suggested that government must have some secret aircraft that was capable of replacing the SR-71. According to Richard H. Graham, Col., USAF in his book SR-71 Revealed, "in 1990, Senator Byrd and other influential members of congress were told a successor to the SR-71 was being developed and that was why it was being retired. The "Aurora" could be this plane.

This argument is weakened by the fact that in 1995, Congress approved $100 million to bring the SR-71's back into service. One argument is that the Aurora was abandoned, either due to expense or technical difficulties, and that the SR-71 had to be brought back to resume its mobile surveillance role.

Legacy:
The Aurora's background comes from the hypersonic research of the 1960s, including the X-15, XB-70, SR-71, and high-speed aircraft testing in the deserts of southern California.