A new era for Aurora Flight Sciences is officially here.

Aurora, a Boeing company, has completed a significant expansion of its site near the North Central West Virginia Airport in Bridgeport. The expansion supports significant growth across both current production programs and new opportunities in the aerospace industry.

A ribbon cutting ceremony took place on Wednesday that was attended by a contingent of Aurora executives and employees as well as local and state leaders.

The expansion adds almost 50,000 square feet of space, increasing the site’s total footprint to approximately 227,000 square feet.

“It’s just exciting to see how far we have come,” Mike Caimona, President and CEO, Aurora Flight Sciences said. “We started as one building here in Bridgeport. Now, we are excited to have 50,000 square feet of advanced manufacturing here in Bridgeport. It’s a great day.

The expansion includes doubling the size of the clean room, adding another autoclave, installing permanent freezers, and creating adequate space to safely implement point-of-use tooling in a new assembly area. Aurora West Virginia is already home to cutting-edge manufacturing technology such as a robotic composite manufacturing cell, which uses robots for precise part machining, transport, and dimensional inspection.

“This is an important facility for Aurora and Boeing and for the aerospace industry more broadly,” Caimona said. “We manufacture some parts of airplanes and aircraft that are critical for national defense.

“And outside of our defense programs, we are designing and building experimental airplanes, technology that has never been built before. To have that type of advanced capability here in West Virginia is important to everyone involved.”

In 1994, Aurora opened its first West Virginia location, a 68,000 square feet composite materials and prototyping facility, in Fairmont. The company moved to the Bridgeport location in 1999, starting with a single building and growing into the 6-building campus they have today.

Aurora Flight Sciences was founded in 1989 in Virginia and has four U.S. locations and one international location.

Aurora provides career opportunities in manufacturing engineering, composite fabrication, production assembly, and more. Aurora expects to grow its workforce by approximately 50 percent over the next five years. New team members receive on-site training, and Aurora works with local vocational programs, community colleges, and universities to connect students with employment opportunities.

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and U.S. Senator Shelly Moore Capito were two of the honored guests for Wednesday’s event and both were excited about the expansion and the job Aurora has done and continues to do.

“What’s going on right here, right now, because there is more opportunity coming to West Virginia than you can imagine,” Justice said. Aurora is increasing their employment, their footprint here by 50 percent. What they do for the nation is off the charts. It’s fascinating that it’s happening right here in West Virginia.”

Aurora Flight Sciences, a subsidiary of Boeing, works to advance the future of flight.

They design, build, and fly cutting-edge aircraft, aircraft components, and technologies. The West Virginia facility manufactures components and assemblies for advanced aircraft such as the MQ-25TM Stingray, T-7A Red Hawk, and military helicopters. Earlier this year, Aurora announced that the West Virginia facility will build the airframe for DARPA’s X-65 active flow control demonstrator aircraft and will provide the transonic-truss-braced wing assembly for NASA’s X-66 sustainable flight demonstrator aircraft.

“It is so important what you do here,” Capito said. “Not only do you do it well, but think about the strength of our nation. We are a super power. We have the most innovative, technological advanced weaponry, aviation, aerospace and we couldn’t do it without every single part we see going on here.

“It’s a tribute to our nation, the work that is being done here.”

Editor's Note: Top photo is from the ribbon cutting ceremony, second photo is of Caimona. Second photo is of Gov. Justice and bottom photo is of Seator Capito.