Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - Block 2 Unfolded

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Anpanman - Block 2 Unfolded · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast and.
0:10
We just basically come your phone and be seamless regardless
0:14
of where you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by satellite.
0:21
Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:28
Hey everyone, thanks for joining.
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What an amazing time. Oh, man.
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What, what crazy news. I mean, you know, we all expect
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it, but of course, it's one thing you expect it and it's
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another thing for it to actually happen because there's always
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associated risk with this unfolding.
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And so once it happens, wow, what a what an amazing feeling.
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Thanks everyone, for joining. This is, Yeah, a truly special
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evening and the dawn of a new era for communications, you
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know, for this company is T Space Mobile and yeah, this is
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just a tremendous milestone. I don't think people outside of
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Space Mob truly understand what this means, but I think perhaps
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articles and as investors kind of dig into the name more,
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they'll understand what what mile kind of milestone this is.
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But before I start, I I just wanted to highlight.
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So there was this, I guess it was in Yeah.
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In 2022, Kerrisdale put together this short report.
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They, they timed it perfectly. After the company had launched
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their first major test satellite, which was Blue Walker
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3 in September of 2022, Carristale issued a short
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report. And of course, they issued it
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right after the launch was successful, knowing that the
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company was going to be, you know, their, their hands are
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going to be tied behind their backs and responding to it.
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Of course it was good that they didn't, but they put out the
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short report. There was like a ton of fun.
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And one of the key Nuggets in the short report was this quote
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from a former director of engineering at SpaceX.
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And this, this person LED a team of 150 engineers across multiple
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disciplines. And, and this was a quote that
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was supposed to scare people out of their AST space mobile chairs
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while we waited for Blue Walker 3 to unfold.
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And so I'll just read the the quote here.
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It's in the report. The size of the antenna is
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terrifying. There's only a handful of
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entities that have deployed A foldable thing in space that big
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and they're NASA and intelligence age entities.
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It's an extremely difficult thing to do.
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And it's almost also more or less impossible to accurately
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test on the ground. And so this is a a senior
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engineer at SpaceX. This is their quote, which, you
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know, let that sink in for a little bit.
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Let's let's let's let's analyze what this person said back in
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2022. So first, the size of the
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antenna antenna is terrifying. And so if you can imagine
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SpaceX, their satellites back then were using phased arrays
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that were on this is like probably B ones.
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They were probably about 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 meters in size, so
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really small. And so the the idea of having
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this massive phased array for for Blue Walker 3 was
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unimaginable, right? And so this guy in particular
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saying the size of an antenna is terrifying.
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There's only a handful of entities that have ever done
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this thing in space and their NASA and intelligence entities,
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meaning, you know, the CIA and Department of Defense and, and
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what have you. And so back then when you saw
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this quote, I'll be, I'll be honest, the first time I saw it,
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it made me a bit worried. I was like, Oh my gosh, am I, am
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I not assessing the risks of this company properly?
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But The funny thing is that when you look at this quote now, it's
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actually a, a high compliment, right?
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And it's the this company, ASD Space Mobile was audacious
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enough to try to pull this off. And they did it.
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And even the, the huge behemoth SpaceX, the leader back then and
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the undisputed leader now was terrified of doing it.
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And they they still haven't done it, right.
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And so the fact that this guy is saying, OK, this this startup
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company, if they can pull it off, they're essentially going
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to be in a very elite class of entities that have ever done
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this thing that have deployed A foldable array.
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So that's NASA and, and intelligence agencies.
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And so, so yeah, I guess, I guess we're one of the most
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elite companies out there now because not only have we
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unfolded a 693 square foot array, but now we have
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successfully unfolded a 2400 square foot array.
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And so that's that's a big deal. So not only have we done that,
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we've done it multiple times successfully.
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And so if you, if you think about the DNA of the company,
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you know, obviously people have from time to time have, you
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know, criticized the company for taking longer than than they've
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projected in terms of their timeline.
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And you know, there's been delays and, and what have you.
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But you know, that's the company's DNA.
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They, they measure twice and cut once.
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They're, they are their DNA is to succeed the first time and
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every time, right. And so here we've got we the
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company is now 7 for seven in terms of success of unfolding
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these large phased race 66, which would it be Blue Walker
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3:00 and then of course the Block 1 satellites, Bluebird 1
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through 5. And so those are 693 square feet
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in size. And at the time those were the
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largest communications arrays in low Earth orbit.
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And now we've successfully unfolded the largest ever again.
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So 3 1/2 times bigger in size, but now we've unfolded a 2400
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square foot phased array. And so that's that's huge.
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I mean, the, the, the ability to engineer that and to pull it off
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successfully is, is invaluable, right.
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And so it's not just for communications applications, but
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it's also having the engineering and the patents behind it.
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There's going to be other applications for it.
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You know, we've talked about data centers and, and all these
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other things. But but yeah, there's, I don't,
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there's not another company in the world that's pulled this
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off. And so, yeah, kudos to Abell, to
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Scott, the rest of the team, the company, they're in a very elite
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class, a very select group of, of organizations that have done
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something like this. Going back to this SpaceX
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engineer's quote, he also says, or is she?
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It's an extremely difficult thing to do.
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And it's also more or less impossible to accurately test on
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the ground. And so this is kind of like
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traditional thinking where, OK, we put up a large communication
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satellite, the first of its kind out in space, that phased array,
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like how are we going to calibrate it?
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How are we going to test it? It's pretty much impossible,
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right? And so this is where the
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out-of-the-box thinking of a bell comes into play, where the
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company in a in a very intelligent and creative way.
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I mean, the, the, they were just ingenious in this.
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They decided for Bluebird one, what they were going to do is
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actually do the reverse to test if this phased array was going
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to work properly. What they did with Bluebird 1 is
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that that was a little cube sat. They put a phone inside of it
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and they sent it up to space and had the phone orbiting at 17,000
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mph. And then they built the phased
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array on Earth and by doing so, they they were able to properly
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test and calibrate it on the ground.
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And they could iterate that very quickly because the obviously
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the phone's not going to change and it's going to continue to
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orbit around the Earth. But then the phased array on the
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ground or the satellite, they could continue to iterate and
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improve that design because they had access to it.
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It was on, it was on Earth. And so that's the kind of
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out-of-the-box thinking that this company is capable of.
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And I think perhaps that's not really appreciated by most
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people who don't understand the story of the, of ASD space
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mobile and, and, and the heritage, right?
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Where these problems that and, and you know, issues that
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perhaps traditional companies or I guess people who think in a
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traditional way, you know, may approach a problem and see the,
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the difficulty in it. And perhaps like, you know, the
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impossibility, this company actually thinks several steps
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ahead and thinks outside the box and figures out a way to solve
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these problems. And so I think it's a again,
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it's a big testament to the innovation that that this
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company brings. And, you know, we, we've always
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talked about a 3800 patents and patent pending claims and how
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ingenious the, the unfolding mechanism is, which I'll talk a
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bit more about. But but yeah, that's, it's kind
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of weird to see, you know, someone from SpaceX talking in
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that way about how it would be impossible to test and how this
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company got around it. I mean, you obviously could in a
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traditional sense, you could send up satellites and keep
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iterating and then test them. And if they, you know, calibrate
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them, but they failed, then you send up another one.
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Then that, you know, you have to make more improvements and you
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send up another one, which is this the SpaceX way, right?
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Like they sent numerous Starling satellites up in the space and
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I'm sure they, they continue to upgrade them over time.
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Whereas whereas AST space mobile, yeah, they developed the
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satellite on the ground and they put the phone up in space and
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they developed it that way in reverse, which was way more cost
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effective and it allowed for a more rapid improvement in
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innovation and, and changes to the satellite.
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So, so yeah, it's, I mean today what an incredible, you know,
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five years in the making, five years meaning for the people
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who, you know, invested in the company and started investing in
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the company in 2020. But yeah, this is an incredible
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testament to the engineering that, you know, for those that
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that don't understand what was accomplished here.
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So the Block 2 satellite, I think, you know, the, the
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company had been designing and thinking through this potential
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form factor for, for quite some time, But it wasn't until I
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think it was like the fall, fall or winter of 2024 when the first
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time that I actually heard about it.
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But I didn't understand what, what, what it meant.
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And so I, I had this conversation with management and
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I remember them saying, Oh, well, you know, that this,
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because I, I was under the assumption that block 1, like
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that was the final design and, and, or they were going to
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increase the size, but they were going to keep the same, the same
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overall design. But then that was hinted to be
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it was like, well, you know, we're for this the the next
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generation, which is going to be bigger.
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It's going to be simpler in an unfolding mechanism and less
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risky. And I didn't understand what
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that meant. I didn't realize that the
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control sat was going to get moved from the center and then,
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you know, the fold was going to be very different.
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But but I think you know that the company once I think it was
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like in the beginning of 2025 and they filed with the FCC and
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they talked about the the they actually disclosed the the
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design change. And that's of course, like when
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when her friend Tim Ferrari came out, I was like, Oh my gosh,
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they they've changed the satellite completely.
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There's no way they're going to be able to get this thing up in
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space and it won't get approved. And yet, you know, whatever, the
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same, so the same, the same FUD that he continued to paddle.
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He's always peddled. But you know, there, there were
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definitely a number of us were like, OK, wow, this is a really
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different, you know, form factor and design change.
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Like, I understand why they're doing it, but are they going to
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be able to pull it off, right? Because from that point on, I
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think it was until now, it was about a nine to 12 month
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process, right? And so they, they rolled out
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this completely new design. It leveraged the same
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fundamental building block of a Micron.
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But then the way that those microns were put together and
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then of course, the control sat and the encapsulation of the
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control sat, all that completely changed.
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I mean, this is, this is a completely new spacecraft and,
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and that's, you know, that requires different, you know,
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different ways that or a different way to load it onto a
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fairing. It's obviously much, it's much
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bigger and heavier and then it's going to fly differently too out
13:46
in space, which is probably why it took some time to confirm
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that everything was OK before announcing that this was
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successfully unfolded. And you know, I'll talk a bit
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more about that. But but yeah, this, I mean, talk
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about rapid innovation and of course, you know, people are or
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would, you know, are probably going to push back and say,
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well, you know, the company was hoping to launch by, I think the
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original timeline was like they were going to launch sometime in
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April of 2025. And of course due to internal
14:16
delays and then also launch provider delays that got pushed
14:18
back basically to the end of the year.
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But but yeah, that, I mean, the company is, as I've mentioned
14:25
earlier today with space companies like you have to
14:29
expect delays, whether that's on the company side or things that
14:33
are out of your control. And as I mentioned before, like
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this company, they, they, the DNA is to get it right every
14:41
time, all the time. And so there's no room for
14:44
error. And so this is a completely new
14:47
spacecraft and you know, it was developed in a short period of
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time. The reason why they had to move
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to this, what I guess what we'll call like a cat food can or tuna
14:57
can design is that the regulations changed.
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I'm not sure exactly when it had happened, but previously in the
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Blue Walker 3 design and the block one designed the, you
15:11
know, Bluebird one through 5. That design actually was one
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where if you, you had the folded array and then you had a control
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like a rectangular, kind of like a rectangular box control sat on
15:23
top. And then you had an LVAA launch
15:26
vehicle adapter, which that was like the two cylindrical halves
15:32
that kept the whole thing together.
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And then you had like, what do you call it like these straps?
15:38
Maybe it's like two or three straps that keep that whole
15:40
thing together. And so once you launch, you
15:43
know, the satellite and then it got to the correct orbit, what
15:47
the company would do would pop off, they would pop off these
15:49
latches and then the, the two cylindrical halves would fall
15:53
off. And then the, the, you know,
15:57
phased array would then start the unfolding process.
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And it would start by unfolding in two directions.
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So it would go from, if you can imagine like a stack of playing
16:10
cards, it would go from that to two arms swinging out.
16:16
So imagine like your left and right arm.
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And that would be the bar configuration, right.
16:20
And so from that point, then at the right moment, the company
16:24
would, you know, communicate to the satellite and then it would
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unfold from the bar configuration into the entire
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satellite, which there's some like gifts out on Twitter or
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YouTube, there's videos that show that entire unfolding
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process. So from going, you know, 2 arms
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going out and then from those arms you have two directions
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where it unfolds. And then, you know, the, the,
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the phased ray is completely deployed.
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The issue with that design though, is that those two
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cylindrical pieces, which are the launch vehicle adapters,
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they would basically just fly out there in orbit.
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And over time, which would be, you know, if it's at 500 or 600
17:05
kilometers up in space, it would take, you know, a decade or more
17:10
for those two pieces to eventually fall back to the
17:13
Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.
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And So what the regulators have have been doing is that they're
17:18
trying to reduce the, the amount of, you know, stuff or garbage
17:22
that's out there in space. And so one of the requirements
17:25
is that if you have to use a launch vehicle adapter, do you
17:30
need that, that, you know, those two things that were left out in
17:34
space? They actually in the future, if
17:35
you decide to do that, they would need to have some
17:38
propulsion, some type of system that would be able to
17:41
essentially bring them back down to to earth and deorp them more
17:45
quickly. And so that's, that's a big, you
17:48
know, economic and weight cost to do that, right?
17:51
Because then you're in essence, not only sending one spacecraft
17:55
up, you're sending three spacecraft up, like each, each
17:58
piece of the launch vehicle adapter, what needs to have like
18:01
some kind of flight control and like propulsion to basically
18:04
bring it back down. So what the company did in the
18:06
very elegant way is they developed this tuna can which in
18:11
that large tuna can, FM 1 and FM 2, which are BB6BB7.
18:18
Those are made of, you know, some type of metallic metal, you
18:22
know, material. But within that tuna can you
18:26
have the control sat and then the phased array is inside.
18:30
And so this new mechanism, and there's been various speculation
18:33
as to how that unfolds, this new mechanism just has one arm that
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swings out. And so once it's deployed, the,
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the phased array swings out in one big arm, right?
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And then that arm, only then that arm unfolds in One
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Direction. And so if you can imagine, let
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me count. So in block 1, you had 1/2,
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which are the two arms that come out.
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And then you have 3456, you have like 66 major unfolding
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directions. But then within that 6, there's
19:07
also the fact that the panels, each panel had hinges and would
19:11
unfold themselves, right? And so, so there was, you know,
19:15
it was a great design, but it, it wasn't overall the rigidity,
19:20
it wasn't as rigid. And then of course, there was a
19:23
lot of room for potential failure, right?
19:25
So if one of those unfolding processes get stuck, then then
19:29
that's a big problem. And, and of course, you know,
19:33
that could be due to a hinge getting stuck or, you know, when
19:38
the panels, I guess maybe breaks or something.
19:42
So that was a pretty complex design, elegant but and got the
19:46
job done, but complex. And so this design was much
19:49
simpler in the sense that you had one big arm fold out and
19:52
then it unfolded in One Direction.
19:54
So it's basically two major folds unfolding motions.
19:59
But then within that, and I remember this was like based off
20:04
of some research and and what have you, I think the.
20:09
The microns in that first design, I think at most I'm
20:14
trying to remember, I think it was like 2 microns would get
20:17
fused together. And so, so you would have two
20:21
microns worth of, you know, array fused together and then
20:25
the hinges would connect to those.
20:27
Whereas in this new design you actually have 8 microns fused
20:30
together. So they create like this much
20:32
bigger rectangle. And so within those, the large
20:37
major unfolds, the hinges, the number of hinges that you need
20:41
and the minor unfoldings that happen is much lower because
20:46
that you have much larger rigid pieces, if that makes sense.
20:49
And so, so yeah, this this design was a lot more elegant.
20:52
It's much less complex. There are fewer hinges, there's
20:56
fewer potential opportunities for failure.
21:00
But that said, they're in this unfolding process.
21:03
And this is where I think people, all of us, quite
21:06
frankly, we're a little nervous in that this, in this design,
21:11
the actual unfolding process, even though it's, it's simpler
21:15
and less complex, it actually is more stressful.
21:18
So if you can imagine like instead of having two microns
21:22
together, you, you, you fuse together 8 of them.
21:25
And so when it unfolds like you're going to have a pretty,
21:28
it's going to be like, there's going to be like a pretty big
21:32
like tremor through this whole thing, right?
21:34
Because it's, it's a much bigger swing out process.
21:39
And then, you know, the, the, the amount of stress that you're
21:42
putting on each of these microns is much bigger and, you know,
21:45
2400 square foot versus 693 square feet.
21:51
And so, yeah, there's, there's more stress and, and, but of
21:55
course, you know, the company has taken out of account, I'm
21:57
sure they, they fortified or used stronger hinges and, and
22:02
when they fused them together, they, they probably hardened
22:05
them, hardened them a bit more. But but yeah, so, so this is a
22:10
totally new aircraft spacecraft. It does not once the, the salary
22:15
is deployed and then once it unfolds, there's no debris that
22:18
comes off of it. There's no like launch vehicle
22:20
adapter that comes off the whole thing is encapsulated in of
22:24
itself. And so that's one of the, for
22:26
example, that's one of the elegant design things that you
22:31
have with Starlink where the satellite is, it's like this
22:35
little flat plate and then, you know, they array deploy from one
22:40
side to the other. But there's there's nothing that
22:43
complex about the satellite, which you know, that's part of
22:46
the elegance. And of course they're, they're
22:48
cheap and there's, you know, they deploy a lot of them, but
22:51
that also limits the ability to deploy like a large phased
22:54
array. Like they, they can deploy
22:56
large, you know, solar panels, but then the phased array is
22:59
pretty limited in size unless they do something similar to
23:03
what ASD is doing. So anyway, but yeah, that
23:08
that's, you know, in a nutshell, this, this spacecraft is it's
23:15
more efficient in terms of not having any additional waste that
23:19
you have to like launch vehicle adapter to keep, to keep the
23:23
thing encapsulated. It's all contained.
23:26
And so so yeah, this is pretty exciting.
23:30
The, the, the reason why people are are excited about this being
23:34
successful is that this means that obviously you know Bluebird
23:37
7, which is going to launch on Blue Blue Origin, New Glenn 3 as
23:41
early as late February, although it's probably going to be more
23:44
like March. You know that that de risks.
23:48
If if they've done the same exact thing in terms of
23:51
production and testing with BB6, then that means that BB7 has a
23:55
high chance of success. And then, of course that also
23:57
means that BB8 and then you know all the other 240 some odd
24:04
satellites behind it will likely be successful as well.
24:07
Obviously like if this, if Bluebird 6 had any issues, then
24:12
that would probably cause the company to then pause
24:16
potentially or potentially pause Bluebird 7 until they understood
24:19
what the issue was. And then of course for the
24:22
production of all the other satellites again, that probably
24:25
would have, you know, pause production to figure out in, in
24:29
terms of troubleshooting. Well, you know what the issue
24:31
was. But as far as I can tell, you
24:34
know, it's clear sailing now and, and you know, BB7 is, is
24:37
going to launch and then we should get an update on the bat
24:40
BB8 through 10 batch. But you know, there were some
24:44
questions today and I guess over the last few days of like, why
24:48
is it taking so long? Well, I think it's important to
24:50
understand, you know, once you launch a satellite up in space,
24:54
you've got to go through this process called detumbling where
24:58
the satellite might be spinning end of run very slowly or, or
25:02
it's oriented the wrong way. And so through various
25:06
technologies like magnet workers and you know, other things,
25:09
magnet workers use the Earth's natural magnetic pool to
25:15
basically orientate, orientate the, the aircraft or spacecraft
25:19
in the right way. But you want to get it stable,
25:22
right? You want it to have it, you want
25:24
to have it oriented the right way towards Earth before you
25:27
unfold it. You obviously don't want to do
25:28
it when it's upside down or if it's like spinning.
25:31
And so that takes about a bit of time.
25:33
And then you've got to, you know, turn on the systems and
25:37
make sure, you know, you do all these checks and make sure
25:39
everything's working correctly. And then you've got to wait for
25:42
the right conditions, right? Like if there's solar flares or
25:46
there's whatever events that are happening in space, you wouldn't
25:50
want to take the risk until of unfolding satellite until it's
25:54
an, you know, an optimal time to do so.
25:57
And then once that's all good, then you might.
26:02
And, and this is where Space Mob came into play.
26:06
Then you go through the unfolding process, which you
26:08
might go through the initial step of getting the large, the
26:12
large arm out and then the second step, which is unfolding
26:17
the array in One Direction from the arm.
26:20
And so whether that you followed Cat C or Toad or some of these
26:26
other, other folks who were following very closely, space
26:29
Space Mob correctly predicted that the, the phased array was,
26:34
was deployed over the last few days actually, or, you know, we
26:39
had a high degree of confidence. But of course, you know, people
26:41
are like, well, the, the phased array has been deployed.
26:44
Like why don't they PR it immediately?
26:46
Why are they waiting? And so the reason why you would
26:48
wait is that you don't want to unfold the array and then PR
26:53
that it's been successfully unfolded and then something go
26:55
wrong and then you have to basically walk it all back.
26:59
And so once the array is unfolded, then you have to go
27:02
through the system checks and make sure that everything is OK,
27:05
nothing was damaged. You know, perhaps like one or
27:08
two microns might have gotten damaged or whatever it is,
27:11
right? Like you want to make sure that
27:12
everything is performing nominally as expected.
27:16
And you also have to make sure that you can still fly the
27:19
spacecraft, right? So in the form factor of a
27:22
little 2 or not a little, I wouldn't say a 4/5 ton tuna can
27:28
is little in that form factor. It has different dynamics than a
27:33
deployed satellite with a large phased ray.
27:36
And you know, we, we still speculate on where exactly the
27:39
control side is, but I think that's, it's probably like in
27:41
the corner. And according to Catsy, like
27:45
it's probably flying in kind of a manta ray direction where you
27:48
got the, a sharp end kind of pointing forward.
27:52
And then you've got, you know, it's like a diamond, right?
27:54
Like this, this array is a diamond.
27:57
And then at the end you'll have the control set and potentially
28:00
a solar tail, which is, is space bomb speculation.
28:03
But you want to make sure that once the phase array is
28:06
deployed, that there's nothing wrong, everything's working
28:09
nominally and that you're flying this face craft as well.
28:12
Like you have good control over it.
28:14
You know, the thrusters are working, all that stuff, right?
28:18
And so once you are absolutely sure that everything is working
28:24
as expected and everything is, you know, you, you feel
28:30
confident that there's not going to be any complications, then
28:32
you PR then you put out a press release and say, we have
28:35
successfully unfolded this thing.
28:37
And you, you do, you know, spike the football in the end zone and
28:41
do your, do your little dance. And so that's, that's kind of
28:45
the process. And that's why it took longer,
28:47
right? Because that, that process, this
28:50
satellite is, you know, orbiting the Earth very rapidly.
28:54
And so you only get a few looks at it during the day.
28:57
And, you know, they've got, they've got operation centers,
29:00
you know, around the world, but they, there is it, it does take
29:05
some time. It's not as if it's a, an object
29:07
that's directly overhead and stays there the entire time.
29:10
It's actually flying very quickly at 17,000 mph.
29:13
And so you've got to make sure that everything's stable before
29:16
you, you PR this thing. Because again, it would be, it
29:20
would be a disaster, right? If you unfold it and everything
29:23
was fine. And then all of a sudden
29:24
something bad happened and, and in the satellites like spinning
29:27
out of control or something. So, so yeah, that's, that's why
29:30
I took time. And as I mentioned before, you
29:32
know earlier today, if you are going to be obviously you know,
29:38
we I think space is one of the most exciting areas to invest
29:41
in. And in terms of you know,
29:44
financial upside and opportunity, I don't think
29:48
there's anything out there quite like it.
29:50
And but as part of that, as part of the contract of investigating
29:53
space, if you want to be a successful investor and not, you
29:58
know, be buying into situations when you know, at the wrong
30:03
times or selling at the wrong times.
30:05
A really key aspect of being a good investor in this actor is
30:08
you have to have patience and you have to have an
30:12
understanding that these things take time, right?
30:15
It's they're not easy. It's not like making widgets
30:19
that you're selling to consumers and that, you know, you have a
30:22
good handle on. Oh, here's, here's a widget that
30:24
I'm making. I'm selling it at Walmart.
30:26
And then, you know, I've got a sense spend so much money on
30:29
marketing dollars and then people buy it and then, you
30:32
know, if there is any issues with it, I can just take
30:33
returns. Space is very unforgiving in
30:37
that once you put a, a satellite up in space, you know, there's a
30:43
lot of things that can go wrong if you don't test it properly.
30:46
It could get shaken apart in, in the rocket on the way up.
30:49
Or if you, if it doesn't, if it's not hardened for radiation,
30:54
you know, the chips can fry inside.
30:56
Or if you don't have it properly, you know, you don't
31:03
have it set, set where it can handle very high degrees of
31:09
variations in, in temperature, you know, from going to really
31:13
hot to really cold. If, if the, if the system's
31:16
insides can't handle that, handle that, then you're going
31:18
to have a failure. And so all these things are
31:21
something that you have to take take into consideration.
31:23
It's not like building a data center here on Earth.
31:25
Like there's a lot of other things that you have to plan or,
31:29
and you have to have redundancy too, right?
31:31
Like often times these satellites will have 2-3, you
31:35
know, backup systems and, and be redundant.
31:37
You know, the phased arrays, for example, if any microns or
31:41
antenna fail, you can actually continue to work and that that
31:45
the phased array will continue to be, you know, effective.
31:49
You you can just basically remove some of those from the
31:53
system and continue to operate. So, but yeah, it's, it's
31:58
investing in space. It requires patience.
32:00
And I saw people on Twitter and on Reddit.
32:04
Oh my gosh, people losing it, right?
32:07
That why isn't, you know, we know that the, the, the, the
32:10
phased raise unfolded. Like, why is the company PR ING
32:13
it? And then of course, people,
32:15
well, you don't hear from the company.
32:16
And of course, like, you know, we have a period of volatility
32:18
where, where the entire space sector is selling off and you
32:21
know, the number of things that are happening, then people's
32:25
minds go to like really dark places, right?
32:28
Like, oh man, maybe, maybe the, the, the satellite failed or
32:33
something bad has happened. And, and this is where you kind
32:36
of have to put your trust in management, right?
32:39
Like they've, they were previously to this, they were 6
32:42
for six and now they're 7 for seven.
32:44
And so that's a really good record.
32:46
You don't want to have any failures.
32:47
Eventually at some point, knock on wood, you know, the company
32:51
will have a satellite probably fail or, or get bricked.
32:55
But at least in this early stage, you know, the company
32:58
doesn't want to have that happen, right?
33:00
And so to have that impeccable record and to put forward like
33:06
this again, this new spacecraft, it requires very deliberate
33:12
planning and, and timing and development and, and testing,
33:16
testing again and again and again.
33:18
And so, yeah, I think I think people should just give the
33:21
company some breathing room, right?
33:23
Like, yeah, things get do get delayed and it takes longer than
33:27
expected. But given where the company is
33:30
in terms of technology, you know, I mentioned this earlier
33:32
today, what we have on our hands is something that's that is far
33:36
superior to what Starlink has put out in there.
33:40
There be two satellites or 2 1/2 satellites, the 650 direct to
33:45
sell satellites that are currently out there.
33:47
And then even for V3, the ones that are going to fly up on on
33:51
that are going to be deployed by Starship, those are inferior to
33:54
what we're doing right now. And so, yeah, it's at this
33:59
point, you know, the consolation and our success I think is it's
34:04
inevitable. And I think, you know, it's
34:07
probably hard for people to accept that, you know, when the
34:10
stock prices is down, when it's up, it's like, OK, I can forget
34:13
about the fact that this is taking perhaps longer than
34:16
people expect. But but yeah, that's, that's
34:20
like that's the DNA of the company.
34:21
And, and you should, if you've come this far in the journey,
34:28
just trust in what management is doing, right?
34:30
Like as Tut mentioned earlier tonight, he put out the great
34:35
reminder in that a bell hasn't sold a single share.
34:38
You know, like the stock, whether it was at $2.00 or
34:42
whether it hit 130. Our founder who has voting
34:47
control in the company and truly believes in the mission, the guy
34:51
hasn't sold a single share, right.
34:53
And so I think for for those that perhaps like have a
34:59
difficult time when there is volatility or there's some
35:02
uncertainty, yeah, just follow some space, Bob, because people
35:06
are doing due diligence. I think it was like it was 2
35:09
days ago. I think it was one of the
35:13
Koreans, Korean investors who, who all is LinkedIn very
35:17
closely, or maybe it was someone else.
35:19
They had posted the I, I think it was like a few AST space
35:26
mobile partners had liked a post which kind of indicated or
35:30
hinted that oh, someone had posted.
35:33
I think like perhaps that Bluebird 6 had unfolded
35:36
according to their data. And then there were like AST
35:40
space mobile internal folks and then some partners who were
35:43
liking the post. And so so sometimes you can like
35:47
piece together the mosaic where it's like, OK, if the satellite
35:51
failed, then you probably wouldn't have all these people
35:53
liking that post. And so you could, you know,
35:56
deduce that perhaps like, you know, the satellite had deployed
35:59
successfully. And so I think, yeah, it's it's
36:03
in, you know, for short sellers and for bears.
36:08
If they had followed space Mobile, like Space Mob
36:11
shareholders, they would know that this thing had successfully
36:14
deployed a few days ago, which was a similar dynamic for Block
36:17
1 satellites and then of course Blue Walker 3 as well.
36:22
But but yeah, this is this is huge.
36:25
And of course, you know, what's next is that we've got Bluebird
36:28
7 launched today. There was like there was some
36:32
correspondence between Blue Origin and the FCC around
36:35
communication channels and, and some process related stuff as
36:39
well, which you know, Blue Origin is getting ready to
36:43
launch Bluebird 7. And I think, you know, obviously
36:47
there's a lot going down, a lot going on down at the Cape, which
36:50
is I think the Dragon crew on Falcon 9 is supposed to launch
36:56
no earlier than February 13th. That's, that's got pushed back
36:58
by I think 2 days. And then of course, you've got
37:01
Artemis as well, which is going to happen towards the end of
37:05
this month or early March. And so Blue Origin, New Glen 3
37:09
is either going to come before the Artemis or it's going to
37:12
come after. But but yeah, we just tell
37:15
people like, just relax. You know, it's going to happen.
37:18
Like all these things are inevitable.
37:20
I'm looking forward to it. I'm hoping I'm praying that I
37:23
don't have any conflicts and that I can fly down to the Cape
37:26
because that's going to be probably one of the most
37:29
memorable, you know, launches to see a new vehicle, you know,
37:34
very high profile launch New Glenn 3, which is going to
37:38
potentially or most likely reuse the New Glenn 2 booster.
37:42
But although there is a chance that they'll use a new one if
37:46
they can't get the New Glenn 2 booster refurbished and ready in
37:49
time. But yeah, it'll be cool to see
37:53
Bluebird 7 to go up on that on that vehicle.
37:55
So it'll be a very, you know, the company has already talked
37:59
about inviting investors. And so that's going to be a
38:02
really cool event. And as it, as I said before, I
38:07
think there'll probably be some Blue Origin folks there and, and
38:10
got guests. And so there may not be as as
38:12
big of an event for, for people, But, and if you don't get
38:15
invited or don't make the cut, which, you know, I, I believe
38:19
previously it was some type of selection slash lottery process.
38:24
But if you don't even go to the formal event there, you can go
38:28
down to the Cape and there's good viewing from basically
38:32
anywhere within a few miles of, of the launch site.
38:36
And so there's definitely going to be, you know, people planning
38:40
to meetups like a Chilo's or Waffle House, any number of
38:43
places and different groups too. So I, I what I found out later,
38:49
yeah, we obviously have like a pretty tight community on X, but
38:53
there's like people, these other groups that met like whether it
38:57
was like Facebook groups or Reddit groups that met down at
38:59
the Cape. And so it was really cool to see
39:02
all these different people come together.
39:03
But anyway, yeah, we'll see what happens tomorrow.
39:07
I mean, this is, again, this is big news.
39:10
And I think everybody should feel really good about this.
39:13
And obviously congratulations are in order for the company in
39:16
management. I'm this is a tremendous
39:18
milestone and this is the future.
39:21
This, this particular spacecraft successfully deploying is a
39:25
collective sigh of relief for the company and also a huge
39:30
triumph, right? And and this is the way forward.
39:34
You've got Bluebird 7 that's going to be launching here soon
39:38
and then all the batches after that.
39:41
And so this coming quarter, by the way, for, for Q4, the
39:46
quarterly update, it's going to be pretty chock full of updates
39:50
in terms of production cadence, which based off of our due
39:54
diligence, it sounds like the company's already at 6A lights
39:57
per month. And of course, by then hopefully
40:00
one batch of three will be shipped to the The Cave.
40:04
I I will say I guess another thing I'll add is that.
40:09
There there is, you know, people have been a bit nervous about,
40:12
you know, will the company get to 5 orbital launches by the end
40:15
of Q1? I'm here to tell you that they
40:17
they are not going to, not that that's a big surprise, but but
40:22
yeah, you know, there's the delays down at the Cape and the
40:25
backups. I think probably we'll get 3-3
40:31
at most. So you're going to have Blue
40:32
Origin take FM, you know, FM 2, Bluebird 7UP and then you'll
40:39
probably get one more batch of three happened by the end of
40:43
March and then the other two are going to slip into April, right?
40:48
And then everything kind of backfills from them.
40:51
The company did reiterate though, that they are planning
40:54
still at to get 45 to 60 satellites by the end of the
40:58
year. And so a big part of that, of
41:01
course is going to be whether or not Blue Origin New Glenn could
41:04
pick up its cadence. And then, however, if they
41:07
can't, I'll just remind people that the company has booked
41:11
enough launch capacity for, I think it's 707570 satellites.
41:17
And So what that means is that they they probably overbooked
41:21
with with SpaceX Falcon 9. And so, yeah.
41:25
And until we hear differently, you know, that's still the
41:27
target 45 to 60 satellites by the end of the year.
41:31
And yeah, it'll be an exciting time.
41:33
So I'm going to end it there. It's almost 12:30 and we'll
41:38
catch up again tomorrow. But but yeah, it's a very
41:41
exciting time. I wanted to get people together,
41:44
talk about it. Yeah, this is this is great.
41:48
And I'm looking forward to the next, the next Bluebird 7
41:54
launch. Hope to see many of you there.
41:55
And yeah, we'll, we'll talk again soon.
41:58
Take care. Thanks for listening to the AST
42:02
Space Mover Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and
42:05
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42:17
Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
42:23
We're doing something very, very big and actually with this
42:25
technology we can really affect billion lives.
42:28
Safety Space Mobile is the only company that has proven
42:32
technology to deliver several broadband connectivity directly
42:36
from the state to do every day as much people will just
42:40
basically turn their phone and be seamless, regardless of where
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you are. We don't want the user even to
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know that it's connected by satellite.
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Our role is to bring this into reality, always in
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pharmaceutically and emotion.