Aevum

Aevum, Inc. was founded in 2016 by Jay Skylus in Jacksonville, Florida, to build a comprehensive, software-driven global space transport system rather than another expendable rocket program. The company pioneered the concept of Autonomous Launch: a fully autonomous, self-flying, self-managing launch architecture that treats orbital delivery as a logistics problem, optimizing every mission for weather, air traffic, orbital destination, payload mass and ground crew scheduling.

Aevum's flagship vehicle is Ravn X, the world's largest autonomous unmanned aircraft system (UAS) by mass, unveiled in December 2020. Ravn X takes off and lands like an airplane from a standard runway, needs only a one-mile runway and an 8,000 sq ft hangar, and uses common Jet A fuel. It was designed from the outset to be reusable — roughly 70% reusable at debut, with a roadmap toward 95% reusability — enabling on-demand orbital delivery as fast as every 180 minutes.

The company built its early business around U.S. national security space, winning government contracts valued at over $1 billion, including the U.S. Space Force's ASLON-45 mission — the first small-launch mission awarded under the Space and Missile Systems Center's SRP-O program — and the Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4) IDIQ contract, which made Aevum eligible to compete for 20 missions over nine years. Aevum also held an AFWERX SBIR Phase II award for rapid launch and space logistics.

Aevum positioned itself as covering the full value chain of access to space — launch hardware, software-driven mission planning, satellite deployment scheduling, regulatory compliance and insurance — so that space operators could focus on their own payloads and missions rather than logistics.