Overview
- AST SpaceMobile said it put BlueBird 8, 9 and 10 into low Earth orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Wednesday, and SpaceX recovered the first stage on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
- Each new Block 2 BlueBird carries about 2,400 square feet of phased arrays and is designed to deliver peak speeds near 200 Mbps directly to ordinary smartphones, roughly double Block 1 performance.
- The launch follows the April loss of BlueBird 7 after a Blue Origin upper‑stage anomaly and an SEC filing that estimated the carrying‑value loss at $155–$160 million, so commissioning and verification of the new satellites are now key near‑term milestones.
- Markets reacted positively to the mission with a premarket share rally, but outlets report different post‑launch in‑orbit totals (nine or ten), and AST must still integrate gateways and carrier partners before it can recognize commercial revenue.
- AST says satellites 11–33 are in advanced production, it has agreements with nearly 60 mobile network operators, and regulators have cleared deployments up to 248 satellites, keeping the roughly 45‑satellite year‑end target for limited northern‑latitude service under active scrutiny.