The Alabama rocket start-up Aevum recently introduced the world's biggest drone that will soon take US military satellites into orbit. This unmanned drone weighs about 28 tons designed to drop rocket mid-air to shoot small satellites into low-Earth orbit.
The drone, called RAVN-X, needs neither a pilot nor a launchpad because it is autonomously operated. Its first mission will be in 2021 after the flight testing, which will be for the US Space Force.
According to an article by Business Insider, Aevum was picked by the US Space Force to fly a $4.9 million satellite mission next year, and it was also contracted for a commercial mission. The company's CEO and founder, Jay Skylus, said that they aim to launch satellites every three hours upon receiving them in the spaceport.
"We are not just a launch company - I can't emphasize that enough," he said.
Small satellite launch startup Aevum unveils its Ravn X vehicle, which it describes as "the world's largest unmanned aircraft system" that can takeoff from a runway and deliver payloads to space using only jet fuel: pic.twitter.com/vbnhts38r7
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) December 3, 2020
Meet the world's biggest drone: Aevum's RAVN-X
RAVN-X is about the size of two school buses that look like a combination of a bird and a missile. The world's biggest drone needs no launchpad but only a runway as it climbs high into the atmosphere and releases a small rocket, that weighs between 100 and 500 kilograms, mid-air that was attached to its body.
Skylus said that the RAVN-X flies like a typical plane, and uses Jet-A, a common kerosene-based fuel, despite its unusual size and missions. All it needs for takeoff is a one-mile-long runway and hangar, the news outlet reported.
Aevum revealed that they have been toiling for RAVN-X's design for over five years in its makeshift headquarters in Alabama. But Skylus said that he had been thinking about the design for a decade before that as he transferred from NASA to another start-up and then another.
He said that he got disappointed with the approaches that the companies were taking and their resistance to new ideas, so he scraped together a few funding and got to work with some aerospace colleagues.
Launching satellites to the orbit
Kirtland Air Force Base's Space and Missile Systems Center chief Lt. Col. Ryan Rose said that they are excited with this current innovation and responsiveness, Science Magazine reported.
"The US Space Force is proactively partnering with industry to support US space superiority objectives. Having a robust US industry providing responsive launch capability is key to ensuring the US Space Force can respond to future threat," he said. The rocket start-up company and the US Air Force hopes to launch ASLON-45 in the third quarter of 2021.
Moreover, Aevum said that they are aiming for costs of a few thousand dollars per kilogram, the same as the Falcon-9 rocket of SpaceX. The difference between the two is that researchers would have more control over the RAVN-X with regards to its launch schedule and the precise orbit that they want.
The unveiling of RAVN-X is the next step towards its bright future, as seen with the numerous military contracts they have.
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