TAMPA, Fla. — AST SpaceMobile announced Nov. 14 that it has reserved rockets from Blue Origin and others to deploy enough satellites between 2025 and 2026 to provide 5G full-text, voice and data services to standard mobile phones in the United States. United States and other key countries. markets.

The company said it has contracts to launch up to 45 Block 2 BlueBird satellites, with options for about 15 more, to reach the level needed to allow U.S. AT&T and Verizon customers to keep their subscribers connected outside of cell tower coverage nationwide.

Founder Abel Avellan, CEO and president of AST SpaceMobile, said on an earnings call with analysts that India’s GSLV was the first to launch and would launch a single BlueBird block 2.

He said two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets each carrying four BlueBirds Block 2 would likely come next, followed by successive Blue Origin New Glenn rockets, which have a fairing large enough to deploy eight of the satellites at once in low Earth orbit (LEO). ).

Although New Glenn is expected to make its maiden flight this year following multiple delays, Avellan said he is confident the rocket will be available to deploy the bulk of its upcoming satellites as AST SpaceMobile ramps up production in Texas.

“The New Glenn is designed to be reused 25 times and several of those are under construction,” he said during the earnings conference call.

Blue Origin declined to comment on its launch manifesto.

A BlueBird Block 2 would be approximately 223 square meters when fully deployed, significantly larger than each. of the five BlueBirds of Block 1 of 64 square meters which were launched together in September on a Falcon 9.

Avellan said BlueBirds Block 2, scheduled to launch around mid-2025, would also include chips developed in-house to enable 10 gigahertz of satellite processing bandwidth, or 10 times the capacity of a BlueBird Block 1 , supporting up to 120 megabits per second (Mbps) peak data rates.

The five Block 1 satellites are the same size as AST SpaceMobile’s two-year-old BlueWalker 3 prototype in LEO, which the company says achieved download speeds of more than 21 Mbps in testing.

AST SpaceMobile has filed a “special temporary authority” (STA) request with the Federal Communications Commission for permission to begin Block 1 beta services with AT&T and Verizon, after the regulator obtained a partial license in August.

The operator also still needs approval to provide its services commercially in the United States, alongside other competitors in the smartphone sector, including SpaceX.

Avellan said 45 to 60 satellites would also be enough to provide continuous space broadband cellular service in Europe and Japan, where the company also has early agreements with local telecom operators.

Finance the expansion

Andrew Johnson, chief financial officer of AST SpaceMobile, said during the earnings conference call that the operator now expects to spend between $19 million and $21 million to build and deploy each BlueBird block 2.

That’s an increase from an earlier estimate of $16 million to $18 million “due to recently incurred actual launch costs,” he added.

AST SpaceMobile recorded $519 million in cash at the end of September, up from $288 million at the end of the previous quarter, after benefiting from a stock price that soared following details of its U.S. telecom partnerships .

The company also submitted an application for debt financing with the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

“If this application is successful, we will be able to use the proceeds to find long-term, cost-effective debt financing for large projects,” Johnson said.

He said capital spending is expected to rise sharply as satellite production ramps up and launch contract payments come due, from $27 million for the three months to September 30 to around $100 million. million dollars for the fourth quarter of 2024.

However, the company hopes to be able to secure additional funding sources after deploying 25 Block 2 BlueBirds, including potentially generating free cash flow to finance the remaining constellation.

Related