Sarah ScolesIt’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the RAVN-X—a rocket-launching drone designed to send small satellites to orbit without a pilot or a launchpad.
Aerospace startup Aevum unveiled the first flight-ready model today, in advance of the system’s first mission: a 2021 launch for the U.S.
Space Force, to take place after flight testing.The company has already inked about $1 billion in military contracts, but Jay Skylus, founder and CEO, believes the RAVN-X system will be useful for remote-sensing scientists interested in launching small satellites quickly into custom orbits.
The idea it could help scientists is, he says, “one of the key reasons I wake up in the morning.”RAVN-X is about as long as two school buses and looks like it was.