 They were built to develop the technologies that would allow long-term, high-altitude aircraft to serve as atmospheric satellites, to perform atmospheric research tasks as well as serve as communications platforms.It was developed from the NASA Pathfinder Plus aircraft and was developed into the NASA Helios.Centurion, originally built for the altitude on solar power milestone specified by the ERAST project, was the third generation aircraft in the NASA Pathfinder series of electrical-powered flying wing unmanned aircraft.