Case Study: Aurora Flight Sciences achieves a flight-ready, 3D-printed jet-powered aircraft with Stratasys

Stratasys Partners with Aurora Flight Sciences to Design and Develop the World's First 3D Printed Jet-Powered Aircraft

Aurora Flight Sciences, a longtime developer of unmanned aerial vehicles, needed to move beyond prototyping to rapidly design and build a jet‑powered, thrust‑vectoring, blended‑wing‑body remotely piloted aircraft with production‑grade parts and tooling. To meet that challenge they partnered with Stratasys, leveraging Stratasys 3D printing technologies (including Fortus printers and Stratasys Direct Manufacturing) and the GrabCAD collaboration solution to enable more complex, optimized designs and faster iteration.

Stratasys supplied additive‑manufacturing hardware, materials and services plus design collaboration tools to produce topology‑optimized, consolidated components—26 of the aircraft’s 34 parts were 3D printed, representing about 80% of the airframe by weight. Using ASA, laser‑sintered nylon, ULTEM™ 1010 and DMLS INCONEL® 718 where needed, the team cut build time in half, reduced lead times and delivered a 9.5 ft wingspan, ~14 lb aircraft that achieved successful flight at speeds up to 150+ mph, proving Stratasys’ capability for flight‑ready aerospace production parts.

Aurora Flight Sciences

Dan Campbell

Research Engineer