- AST SpaceMobile successfully launched five BlueBird satellites on a SpaceX rocket in the wee hours Thursday morning
- The company is calling it a historic moment in its mission to provide space-based broadband cellular connectivity
- The goal is to eliminate dead spots, similar to what T-Mobile is doing with SpaceX
It’s not every day that investors are so stoked about a company that they’ll travel thousands of miles to witness a satellite launch. But that’s what happened this week with AST SpaceMobile’s launch of five commercial satellites for its direct-to-device (D2D) cellular service.
The company invited hundreds of shareholders to attend the launch at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at Cape Canaveral in Florida. They weren’t even guaranteed the launch would take place due to weather, so they had to be pretty committed to make the trek.
The launch marks a pivotal moment for the company, which first started working on its technology in 2017. The satellites, called BlueBirds, are designed to act like 4G and 5G cell towers in space, connecting to unmodified smartphones on the ground. The first-gen satellites are large – measuring about 700 square feet in area, or big enough to park six full-sized cars on it.
AST’s stock trajectory adds drama to its origin story. AST went public in 2021 with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), closing on its first day at $12. Then it cratered to below $2 in April 2024 before it announced agreements with AT&T and Verizon. The stock was trading around $26 Friday morning, but it was as high as $38.60 last month, increasing more than 1,800% since the low in April, Bloomberg noted.
Retail investors were beaming on social media this week, applauding AST’s ascent into space and the competition it represents to Elon Musk’s ventures.
Addressing the crowd at the launch yesterday, AST SpaceMobile founder, Chairman and CEO Abel Avellan thanked everybody that has worked so hard to get to this point.
“We hope to change the world together with you,” he told attendees.
Although competitors – including SpaceX – would no doubt quarrel, Avellan told Fierce in an interview earlier this year that AST SpaceMobile invented the D2D space. The company has spent more than $1 billion thus far, assembling more than 3,400 patent and patent-pending claims. Partners and investors include AT&T, American Tower, Verizon, Google, Rakuten and Vodafone.
Many of those partners were represented at this week’s launch, including JR Wilson, VP of tower strategy and planning at AT&T. Early in his career, he worked at Teledesic, a low Earth orbit (LEO) company founded in the 1990s by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw with an investment from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Its mission was to become a broadband provider via satellites, very similar to what Starlink does today. Like other satellite ventures at the time, Teledesic crashed and burned, going out of business in 2002.
Wilson’s work with satellites continued in various capacities when he joined AT&T. “My journey at AT&T has really been [about] how do we connect as many places, globally and the U.S., as we possibly can,” he remarked during the pre-launch webcast. “We’ve accomplished quite a bit over the years,” and the AST SpaceMobile deal is an extension of that.
“It’s a very symbiotic relationship,” because in order for D2D to work, there has to be terrestrial spectrum involved, he said. “It just makes sense that we collaborate very tightly.”
AT&T provides the network for FirstNet, the U.S. nationwide wireless network dedicated to public safety, and AST will provide full data connectivity for that.
T-Mo takes note
The event certainly was noticed by T-Mobile, which is planning to launch its own satellite-based messaging service with SpaceX this fall. On Wednesday, T-Mobile announced that it had successfully sent and received – for the first time ever in the U.S. – a wireless emergency alert (WEA) via satellite. The press release was clearly timed to troll AST SpaceMobile before its big launch, noted TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar.
Apple and Google already provide some emergency services and messaging via satellite with their latest phones and it’s increasingly looking like basic satellite messaging will be a feature of each carrier’s premium unlimited wireless plans, said Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart.
“But broadband over satellite – an AST SpaceMobile specialty – will be an added cost,” he told Fierce.
CCS Insight analyst Ian Fogg echoed that sentiment, noting that AST SpaceMobile is aiming to offer a network that offers a richer data connection than Apple's current offer. “If it can deliver this, there is an opportunity to offer a premium service to iPhone users despite Apple's free messaging offer,” he said.
Plus, Apple only serves part of the market, so there is a large opportunity to serve the Android market. There’s an even greater opportunity outside a strong Apple market like the U.S., he said.
“Timing is important,” Fogg said. AST is just building out its constellation now. Others already offer services, but will likely need to upgrade their satellites to support richer broadband connectivity.
“What is underlying all of this is the arrival of 3GPP standards-based support. This is raising the visibility of the direct-to-device satellite market and driving companies to act now, for fear of losing out as the satellite smartphone market expands,” Fogg concluded.
The U.S. carriers have not released exact launch dates for their satellite-based services, but clearly, the race is on.