 In 1988, NASA decided to obtain a HALE UAV named "Perseus" to deal with these problems, designating the effort the Small High-Altitude Science Aircraft (SHASA) program.Perseus was designed by a startup company named Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Virginia.The Perseus design effort struggled along on skimpy funds until 1991, when NASA was conducting a "High Speed Research Program" to evaluate designs for a future supersonic transport, and needed to learn more about the possible environmental impact of such an aircraft on the upper atmosphere.