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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scrappy launch startup <keyword id="10375502" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="aevum">Aevum</keyword> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYMqpL1DtV0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> the world's most massive drone on Thursday.</li><li>Called Ravn X, the 55,000-pound UAV is designed to drop a rocket in midair, which will shoot small satellites into orbit.</li><li>The US Air Force picked Aevum to fly a $4.9 million satellite mission in 2021. Aevum has also contracted a commercial mission.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ravnx-drone-uav-aevum-ceo-jay-skylus-amazon-small-rockets-2020-12">Jay Skylus</a>, Aevum's CEO and founder, says his company's aiming to launch customers' satellites within three hours of receiving them at a spaceport.</li><li>"We are not just a launch company — I can't emphasize that enough," he said.</li></ul>Aevum, a quiet, scrappy, and ambitious rocket-launch startup, unveiled the biggest drone in the world on Wednesday.Called Ravn X, the fully autonomous vehicle is 80 feet long, has a wingspan of 60 feet, and stands 18 feet tall. It's not the largest unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by size - the wings of Northrop Grumman's <a href="https://www.naval-technology.com/projects/mq-4c-triton-bams-uas-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MQ-4C Triton</a> stretch nearly 131 feet. But the Ravn X wins on mass, weighing 55,000 pounds when you include the rocket that will drop out of its belly in midair and shoot a satellite into space. Despite its unusual size and mission, the drone isn't so different from your standard aircraft. It flies like a typical plane, and it and its rocket use Jet A, a very common kerosene-based fuel, says <keyword id="10375501" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="jay-skylus">Jay Skylus</keyword>, the CEO and founder of Aevum."We don't need a launch site. All we need is a runway that's one mile long and a hangar," Skylus told Business Insider. (Even small commercial airports have runways that easily meet that mark.)Aevum has toiled over the design for roughly five years in its makeshift headquarters: an old textile mill-turned-tech incubator in Alabama. Skylus said he mulled over the concept a decade prior to that as he hopped from NASA to one space startup after another. After being disappointed with the approaches he saw and resistance to new ideas, Skylus said, he scraped together a bit of funding and got to work with some aerospace colleagues.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ravnx-drone-uav-aevum-ceo-jay-skylus-amazon-small-rockets-2020-12">A colossal rocket-launching drone is just one small part of Aevum's bid to become the 'Amazon of space,' the startup's founder says</a>Once Ravn X reaches the right location, speed, and altitude, its two-stage rocket is designed to drop, ignite within half a second, and launch a roughly 100-kilogram (220-lb) payload into <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5">low-Earth orbit</a>. The approach is similar to air-launched rocket systems developed by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/virgin-orbit-launcher-one-rocket-cosmic-girl-jet-2018-10">Virgin Orbit</a>'s and Pegasus, though Skylus claims Aevum's unmanned version is more efficient, cost-effective, and enterprising.Aevum is presenting a "new paradigm of access to space," Skylus said. "There's now ground launch, air launch, and autonomous launch."<h2>Autonomous launch to space within 180 minutes</h2><div type="image" title="aevum ravn x uav unmanned aerial vehicle autonomous rocket launch drone aircraft runway cecil spaceport" height="1688" width="3000" msid="79552141" hostid="261"></div>More than <a href="https://iafastro.directory/iac/paper/id/52324/summary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">100 startups</a> like Aevum exist in a pool of companies hoping to dominate the small-launch industry, or <keyword id="48020" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Rockets">rockets</keyword> able to fly payloads weighing 1,000 pounds or less to orbit. The market has surged in recent years with the shrinking size and increasing performance of electronics, plus a growing thirst for space-based images, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-terminal-cost-subscriber-numbers-years-return-investment-profit-2020-11">data services</a>, and more. What Aevum has that few similar companies do, though, is the blessing and funding of the US Air Force. Last year, the Department of Defense contracted Aevum to launch a new mission called Agile Small Launch Operational Normalizer 45 (ASLON-45) for <a href="https://spacenews.com/vector-relinquishes-air-force-launch-contract-mission-re-awarded-to-aevum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$4.9 million</a>. The goal is to fly small, experimental satellites that can detect adversaries' missile launches.Aevum scooped up the contract in part because the company claims it can take a small satellite from a customer and get it into orbit within 180 minutes, if necessary - a task that'd typically take months to work out. Skylus said years of intensive software development have mostly automated the requisite launch paperwork, mission profiling, payload integration, and more. As a result, he said, Aevum needs only about 10% of the staff typically required for launching rockets. "We are not just a launch company - I can't emphasize that enough," he said.Lt. Col. Ryan Rose, a chief within Kirtland Air Force Base's Space and Missile Systems Center, visited Aevum this week at the Cecil Spaceport-based launch facility in Jacksonville, Florida."I'm excited to see the bold innovation and responsiveness in development today by our small launch industry partners to support emerging warfighter needs," she said in an Aevum press release. "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 threats."Aevum and the USAF hope to get ASLON-45 off the ground by mid-2021."There's really no reason for us to not be ready. ASLON-45, like the name implies, is an agile mission. What we're really trying to show is not that small launch vehicles can deliver stuff to orbit - <keyword id="1289688" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Rocket-Lab">Rocket Lab</keyword> is already doing that," Skylus said, referring to the New Zealand small-launch company that recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rocket-lab-used-booster-recovery-attempt-return-to-sender-youtube-2020-11">flew its sixteenth mission to orbit</a>. He added: "What we're proving is agility, flexibility, responsiveness, and operational efficiency. This is a brand-new architecture, and a brand-new launch vehicle that's never been conceived."<div type="image" title="jay skylus ceo aevum portrait ravn x uav drone autonomous rocket launch aircraft" height="1582" width="3000" msid="79552145" hostid="261"></div>Skylus acknowledged the fear some people have of <keyword id="94769" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="drones">drones</keyword> generally, and one carrying a big rocket specifically. But he said the company is working very closely with the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure Ravn X is extremely safe to fly and launch payloads to space.An agency spokesperson declined an interview request by told Business Insider, but noted Aevum said it plans to apply for a launch license in 2021."When you start looking into all of this ... the line between a piloted commercial airliner versus our launch vehicle really starts to blur," Skylus said. "It's hard to tell where one's more safe than the other, and why a person might feel more comfortable with in a giant Boeing airplane flying over you, every single day, versus this one."Are you a space-industry insider with a story or information to share? <a href="mailto:dmosher+tips@businessinsider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Email</a> Dave Mosher, send him a Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/davemosher" target="_blank" rel="noopener">direct message</a>, or consider more secure communication options <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/dave-mosher" target="_blank" rel="noopener">listed here</a>.

Alabama rocket startup Aevum just unveiled the world's biggest drone - a 28-ton autonomous behemoth that may soon rocket US military satellites into orbit

If <keyword id="6355315" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elon-musk">Elon Musk</keyword> can be counted on for anything, it's weird tweets. Also, high hopes, like the idea that <keyword id="6360701" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacex">SpaceX</keyword>'s rocket launching business could eventually bring in $3 billion a year - or that <keyword id="7612156" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="starlink">Starlink</keyword>, its budding satellite-internet service, could produce 10 times that and become the economic flywheel that funds voyages to Mars. But before SpaceX can put that cash toward a Red Planet mortgage, it has to get Starlink to the point where it earns more than it costs. We worked with industry experts and insiders to run the numbers on how far the program is from that breakeven point. The answer: roughly 3 million subscribers, which just may prove tricky given the current state of the satellite-internet market. "There are a little over 2 million subscribers in the US and very few in other parts of the world," Roger Rusch, an engineer and satellite communications industry consultant, told us. "Europe built a satellite that only attracted 190,000 subscribers at the peak and is down to less than 170,000 now."<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-terminal-cost-subscriber-numbers-years-return-investment-profit-2020-11">Read our full breakdown of Starlink's breakeven point right here</a>, get more of the week's <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="transportation">transportation</keyword> news below, and if you haven't yet, <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/shiftinggears">sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every week</a>.Oh, and a programming note: We're busy building our <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/submit-nomination-rising-stars-autonomous-vehicle-industry-2020-11">2020 list of rising stars in the world of self-driving cars</a>. If you know someone under 30 years old who's helping ditch the human driver (or you fit that description), <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfKmNTEW-Fx2n0uiXbroYsAad6R5NNZByaTz1OYD8GO2N2GVQ/viewform">tell us about them right here</a>.<h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-martin-tripp-case-raises-questions-scrap-costs-2020-11">Tesla's missing millions</a></h2>This week, <keyword id="107096" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Tesla">Tesla</keyword> settled a long-running lawsuit with former employee Martin Tripp, who'll pay the automaker $400,000. But court documents from the case raise fresh questions about hundreds of millions of dollars Tesla spent on wasted materials - which could point to sloppy business practices, or a failure by Tesla to report such losses to its investors. <h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gm-nikola-breakup-badger-ev-electric-pickup-canceled-isnt-disaster-2020-12">GM and Nikola's new deal</a></h2>When <keyword id="4581" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="general-motors">General Motors</keyword> and electric truck startup <keyword id="1192755" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nikola">Nikola</keyword> announced this week that they had scaled back a flashy strategic partnership they announced in September, it was hard not to see the news as a sign of failure. But looking at the deal the companies struck in its place, which dumps the part where GM would build an electric pickup for Nikola, it seems both companies will make out just fine - and that maybe this is the setup they should've gone for to begin with.<h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ravnx-drone-uav-aevum-ceo-jay-skylus-amazon-small-rockets-2020-12">Big drone, smart software</a></h2>On Wednesday, Alabama-based Aevum unveiled what it says is the world's heftiest drone. The 55,000-pound Ravn X is built to drop a rocket in midair, which will shoot small satellites into orbit. It is definitely cool, but founder and CEO Jay Skylus told us in an exclusive deep-dive interview that it's hardly the coolest thing about the space startup. That honor goes to the company's focus on logistics and software, and its goal of being able to launch a satellite into orbit a mere 180 minutes after a customer drops it off. <h2>Everything else: </h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-elon-musk-merger-gm-ford-nissan-renault-nio-2020-12">Elon Musk is open to talking about merging Tesla with another car company. These are the 4 most likely candidates.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-logistics-dhl-covid-2020-11">DHL execs explain how they'll capitalize on the airlift of a lifetime and deliver billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-15-million-cars-annually-2040-goldman-sachs-2020-12">Goldman Sachs says Tesla will sell 15 million cars per year by 2040 - nearly double General Motors</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-737-max-first-flight-american-safe-review-analysis-2020-12">I just flew on the first Boeing 737 Max passenger flight since the plane was grounded. The flaws that killed 346 people were the least of my concerns.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dot-is-cracking-down-on-emotional-support-animals-airplanes-2020-12">The DOT is cracking down on emotional-support animals on airplanes and will allow only trained dogs to fly</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-united-airlines-overcame-major-limitation-to-fly-pfizer-vaccine-2020-11">How United Airlines overcame one of the largest limitations to transporting Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to the US</a></li></ul>

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Alabama rocket startup Aevum just unveiled the world's biggest drone - a 28-ton autonomous behemoth that may soon rocket US military satellites into orbit

Dave Mosher

Insider Transportation: The tricky math of Starlink subscriptions, Tesla's missing millions, and more

Alex Davies

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