Tracking Great White Sharks Aided by Firm in Manassas

NANTUCKET, MA — A Manassas-based unmanned-aircraft technology company, Aurora Flight Sciences, is teaming up with an organization that specializes in tracking great white sharks.

This is the time of the year when Ocearch, one of the world's more notable researchers of marine biology, begins tracking and tagging mature great white sharks.

Toward that end, Aurora is providing technology to assist the project by having an air vehicle operator on board Ocearch's ship direct the drone, as it were, to help find and track sharks in real-time.

The expedition began Sept. 19 and will run through Oct. 8. Aurora's founder and CEO, John Langford, will be aboard the ship Wednesday and Thursday.

One example of what Ocearch does is the tracking since 2012 of Mary Lee, a 16-foot great white shark that's been shown to move up and down the Atlantic.

Photo credit: Atlantic White Shark Conservancy