Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - Blue Origin New Glenn, Bank of America Fireside Chat and What Lies Ahead!

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Anpanman - Blue Origin New Glenn, Bank of America Fireside Chat and What Lies Ahead! · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast and.
0:10
We just basically from the seamless, regardless of where
0:14
you are, we don't want the user even to know that it's connected
0:17
by satellite, Satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we
0:22
have is very, very, very large. Large.
0:27
Hey everybody, I am back. I'm broadcasting from my car
0:34
waiting for my son. Yeah, soccer practice that goes
0:36
late. So I'm here with you on what was
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initially for all for most of the day, brutal day of the
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markets. It just seemed everything,
0:50
especially growth and momentum, just going straight down,
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grinding lower the entire day. And so that was painful.
0:56
But then I think like many of you, I was looking forward to
1:02
Blue Origins New Glen launch, which initially was planned for
1:07
basically right at around 3:00. And then of course, as always
1:12
happens with, you know, when you're launching a new, new
1:15
vehicle that got delayed because they wanted to check a few
1:19
things. And then eventually they
1:22
launched and had 100% successful mission, which was something
1:26
that I think all of us were hoping for, but didn't expect.
1:31
Maybe at at best, you know, similar to the first new Glen
1:37
launch, you might have had a successful reach of orbit and
1:42
delivery of payload and then call it a day.
1:44
Maybe the booster didn't land. But today they, they hit
1:47
everything. And that's, that's huge.
1:51
That's huge in the sense of, you know, for our country having two
1:57
reasonable vehicles, Falcon 9 and in New Glen.
2:02
And then also for the space industry.
2:05
I think by having a new competitive launch provider,
2:10
which happens to be the largest, that's really going to change
2:14
the dynamics for customers who want to send stuff up to space,
2:18
but also break open the current for the, you know, I think, but
2:25
most people recognize is a monopoly that SpaceX has.
2:28
I think that's going to be opened up a bit.
2:30
And obviously there's there's a number of other competitors that
2:33
are that are nipping at the heels and we'll be bringing
2:36
additional capacity, you know, throughout 2026 and then
2:39
especially in 2027. But but yeah, this is a huge
2:43
day. And, and the reason why I think
2:45
for those people unaware, AC space mobile shareholders are
2:49
ecstatic in the lated. The reason for that is, you
2:54
know, the company going back to 2024 made a big commitment by
3:01
deciding to procure some launches on SpaceX Falcon 9.
3:06
And they they probably actually probably procured a few more
3:09
launches. And I'll go into that in more
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detail. But in 2024, that summer, Scott
3:17
A Bell and the management team, you know, made a big bet on the
3:22
Origin and, you know, meeting with the with Blue Origin and
3:27
outlining the company's needs for launch in the coming years.
3:32
And then lining that up with what they viewed as as a a
3:37
great, you know, launch vehicle Blue, you know, New Glen and
3:41
that potentially lining up with their needs.
3:44
They decided to make a big commitment back then in terms of
3:48
selecting Blue Origin as a as a primary launch provider and
3:52
then, you know, making financial commitments as such, which is,
3:57
you know, putting forward the down payments for those
4:00
launches. And so that was a big, you know,
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I, I think we all at the time when when we found out the
4:08
company had signed multi launch agreements and everyone was on
4:11
the one hand, you know, Blue origin made sense.
4:14
On the other hand, everyone is secretly hoping for SpaceX
4:17
because you know, Falcon 9 is is the is a tried and true vehicle,
4:22
right. And so I think everybody was
4:26
secretly hoping, hoping that they would book most of the
4:29
launches on Falcon nine that would have you know, de risked
4:33
the launch plans. And so when when the company
4:37
made the announcement that they had signed ML as and we learned
4:41
that, you know, Israel would be the first launch and then SpaceX
4:45
Falcon 9 would be the second. And then it's on the like there
4:49
would be another SpaceX Falcon 9.
4:50
And then from that point on, there was a majority of Blue
4:54
Origin new Glens. I think everyone was like, Oh
4:56
yeah, that's great. But then secretly was like kind
4:59
of nervous. I guess at that point when the
5:02
company made this commitment, New Glen had not even launched.
5:05
And it wasn't until January of the following year, this past
5:10
January, that New Glen had its first launch.
5:13
And I remember, you know, we were all ecstatic to see them
5:17
successfully get to orbit and, and deploy the payload.
5:21
Then of course, the the booster didn't land.
5:22
And, and so later what we found out of course is that I guess on
5:27
reentry these things are tricky. And I'm not an engineer, but
5:32
when you have, you know, the fuel kind of swishing around, I
5:37
guess there was some issue and they can re light the booster.
5:40
And so that's why they didn't land it.
5:43
And so I think what people have forgotten though, like during
5:47
that period of time, you know, it's understandable that they,
5:50
they worked out that issue. And I remember talking to
5:54
management at ASTCS Mobile and they felt very confident.
5:58
They were like, you know, they know what the issues are.
6:00
They're going to land it the second time.
6:01
And, and of course you hear that you're like, OK, that's great.
6:04
And, and I think ASTS management had frequent, whether it was
6:10
weekly or daily updates with the Blue Origin team.
6:13
And I've met of course Bezos, but also David Lipp multiple
6:16
times. And I've visited the factory
6:19
multiple times. I think, I think Scott was like
6:21
at their, their celebration party the last day or two,
6:25
maybe, maybe he's, maybe he was there now, but they had utmost
6:30
confidence. And, and that's great.
6:32
And you know, but, but of course, as an investor, your
6:36
management team can have almost confidence to know that
6:38
provider. But then of course, you know,
6:40
you, you're still nervous. And so today was just absolutely
6:44
tremendous. I mean, I think I know there
6:47
were some people who talked about watching it with their
6:50
kids. I watched it with my kids and we
6:52
were jumping up and down. And, you know, I, I, I know some
6:55
people were crying too. I mean, what a tremendous
6:58
accomplishment. And it's, it's for the people in
7:01
Washington, the people in Alabama, that's where they, they
7:05
build the Rockets, both states. I mean, just imagine like I know
7:13
and, and for Blue Origin, like people at this company have
7:17
gotten a ton of stick, you know, yes, it's it's late, it's been
7:20
delivered late versus what they were projecting.
7:23
And yeah, guess what? Space X2, they're late on their
7:25
stuff too. Space is hard.
7:27
We all know that. But they just were the whipping
7:30
boy. I mean, people would just go
7:31
after them in the industry and what a big fuck you.
7:36
Like, they did it. They fucking did it.
7:39
And it's not like they had to iterate multiple, multiple
7:43
rockets and blow shit up all the time.
7:45
Like which is fine. That's a totally different
7:47
approach and it's perfectly acceptable.
7:48
And it's a different way of doing things.
7:50
But, but yeah, they have their own culture, their own
7:53
engineering and, and on the, you know, they, they got this, this
7:57
large rocket to orbit on the first try.
8:02
And unfortunately the booster didn't land on the second try.
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They did everything. And it's not like the booster
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like missed the target and, or was off or maybe landed the
8:13
ocean. It landed right in the center
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of, of the, of the, the barge. I mean, it's to me, it's like
8:20
just unbelievable. I, I still am beside myself.
8:24
And so to this company, you know, obviously they've had
8:28
experience with New Shepard, which is a smaller rocket.
8:31
And, and so they, it's not like they're new to this stuff, but
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obviously scaling from something that small to something much
8:37
bigger is a totally different proposition.
8:40
But yeah, I mean, I, I have a tremendous amount of respect for
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SpaceX and everything they've done.
8:47
But now we've got like another major player that has a vehicle
8:52
that has demonstrated performance, the ability to
8:56
deliver Fargo into orbit and then the booster to land it to
9:01
be reused. And obviously it's like there's
9:03
probably stuff to figure out and things to optimize and, and
9:08
maybe some things may have gone wrong, which we don't know
9:10
about, but long time purposes like it, it looked successful.
9:15
And So what that means for AST space mobile, which was
9:19
interesting. You know, Scott was at Bank of
9:22
America Day for fireside chat and I, I was going to go through
9:26
some of the Nuggets that came out of that discussion.
9:30
But obviously there was a, there was a big focus on Blue Origin.
9:34
The, the, the research channels at Bank of America was like, OK,
9:37
so you guys have to launch 45 to 60 satellites next year.
9:45
How comfortable are you with that?
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And, and who are you going to use?
9:48
And so it was interesting. I and I tweeted about this
9:51
before. One of the things that Scott
9:54
disclosed today is that they've actually overbooked.
9:56
So they, they haven't. And you know, part of it is he
9:59
talked about like, hey, in October, we weren't expecting
10:02
this, but we had the ability, we had the opportunity and we did
10:05
it. We raised $2 billion, which is
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the 1.15 billion convert. And then they had raised some
10:15
money from, from the, the ATM. And then they also, I think
10:22
this, this is a math, I haven't checked it all out, but then,
10:24
you know, he, I think he's including also the, the capped
10:30
call which they sold. And then I'm trying to think, I
10:34
think, I think he may have included the prepayment from the
10:36
Saudi Arabia are expecting that. But anyway, but with that amount
10:41
of flexibility, what they did he, what he disclosed today is
10:43
that they, they've actually purchased enough launch for 75
10:47
satellites. And So what that tells me and,
10:50
and, and so that, that says that they, in my mind, he's disclosed
10:57
that a majority of their launches are on, going to be on
11:01
Blue Origin, New Glen. And we know that they do have at
11:05
least initially, there's like 3 SpaceX Falcon 9 launches. 1 is
11:10
a, I'd probably a rideshare for FM 2 or maybe it's a single, who
11:14
knows. But and then there's going to be
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two more which carry 6 Bluebirds in total 33.
11:21
But then, but then there's going to be a bunch of Blue Origin
11:25
launches as well. And so when you break that down
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and by the way, Blue Origin, they're going to have to
11:31
continue to optimize the engines.
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And I think initially they're probably going to just start
11:36
taking six Bluebirds up. But then eventually when things
11:40
get worked out, they'll they'll be taking eight of these things
11:43
or up to 8. But when Scott discussed over
11:48
booking launches to take 35 satellites up, I think what that
11:53
means. And then of course, the
11:54
disclosure that a majority, you know, is that 50%, is that 60%?
11:58
I mean, who knows? But the majority of those Blue
12:01
Origin. But then with that, when he said
12:04
that stuff today that that told me that they actually booked
12:07
additional Falcon 9 launches. And I'm not sure the timing of
12:12
those, but they're probably sprinkled throughout the year.
12:14
So obviously like this is great Blue Origin, you know, they,
12:17
they, they stuck the landing. And by the way, like the company
12:21
would tell you that even if they didn't stick the landing today
12:27
or if they have issues in the future, it's not a customer's
12:30
issue now. It it's, it's great for Blue
12:33
Origin because then that saves them money.
12:35
They can go refurbish this booster and then use it again.
12:39
But apparently they've got a lot of these boosters in, in
12:42
production. And so the thought was like, if
12:45
they couldn't land this one or the next one, they were still
12:48
going to have to launch these things because customers are
12:51
paying for them. And so however, now that they
12:54
landed it obviously that that changes the ball game quite a
12:58
bit because then I think the turn around time and the ability
13:02
for Blue Origin to run more rapid cadence is going to be
13:07
really useful and helpful. And then it's also going to
13:10
obviously make life a lot more easy and economical for AST
13:15
space mobile. If you've got six day Bluebirds
13:18
launching on a new blend and then they can turn that rocket
13:21
around and you know, I'm not an expert, but maybe it's a few
13:26
weeks, 30 days. I mean, who knows?
13:30
But but that I think for the ASD space mobile story, you know, 1
13:34
of this one of the like the ways that bears would frame the
13:39
argument against it. One of the key ones is like,
13:41
well, launches, you know, you're the capacity constrained and
13:44
you're reliant on Falcon, on Falcon 9 and SpaceX and their
13:47
competitor and they're going to like delay things on purpose and
13:52
you don't give you a hard time. And then why would they ever
13:55
launch your birds? And of course, like for rational
13:58
people who understand the space market, it's like, oh, SpaceX
14:02
launches competitors all the time.
14:04
They send up one websites, they launch Kiper, Amazon Kiper,
14:08
which is now named Leo. They launch their satellites,
14:12
they launch everybody's satellites, Global Star, they
14:13
launch Iridium. Why would they do anything
14:16
different? And we also have these things
14:18
called antitrust laws in the US where if you do those things,
14:22
then you can get in big trouble. And so, so that, that argument
14:28
was always floating around there and then, well, you're launch
14:31
constrained, but which is true like that.
14:36
And that's why the company put forward these prepayments and
14:38
is, is trying to leverage multiple providers because you
14:41
don't ever want to be beholden to just one.
14:43
However, the game has changed. We're like Dow, Blue Origin, New
14:48
Glen. It's demonstrated the capability
14:52
that they were hoping. And so now with reusability,
14:56
like they can start, you know, once they get to into a rhythm,
15:00
they can start launching AST space mobile satellites.
15:04
They're going to launch Amazon Leo or or Kuiper, we'll call it
15:08
Leo. Now they're fixed wireless
15:10
satellites. And so, yeah, the game has
15:14
completely changed And and so I think I think it's going to take
15:17
some time for the market to digest this because people don't
15:19
associate, you know, obviously, like if if the booster didn't
15:22
work or if new origin has a problem, then then Barry will
15:26
can't say, oh, he's in big trouble.
15:28
But then once it works, I'm sure people aren't going to really
15:31
recognize the two kind of being somewhat connected.
15:37
But I, I, I thought about today, it's like, oh, when the next
15:40
Blue Origin launch and I, I don't know when our satellites
15:43
will go on Blue Origin. It's probably, my guess is like,
15:47
we're not going to put 6 Bluebirds on a Blue Origin fight
15:50
until they've demonstrated maybe one or two more successful
15:54
launches. That's my guess, which is why
15:56
we'll probably use Falcon 9 until that happens.
16:00
But you know, when I don't know, sometime in spring will
16:03
probably, my guess is, will be on a Blue Origin flight sometime
16:06
in spring, the end of spring maybe.
16:08
Q I'm sorry, how they February March, it'll be interesting
16:15
because then all eyes will be on that flight and then they'll
16:18
say, Oh yeah, the customer is ASD Space Mobile and there's six
16:22
Bluebird satellites on there, the largest satellites ever to,
16:25
you know, to to go into lower throw rat and then people be
16:30
like, oh, what is that? What's what's AC space Mobile?
16:33
And then you'll have this, I think you'll have this surge of
16:36
like awareness about what the company's doing.
16:38
But but yeah, today was an absolute game changer, I think.
16:44
And this is good for the industry.
16:45
Like I said, like I remember talking to Scott before about
16:50
how when the war in Ukraine happened, basically launch
16:54
turned into a monopoly where it was, if you were a, you know,
16:59
obviously NASA can use Russian rockets and they, they still do
17:03
to a degree. Like, you know, we, we sent up
17:04
astronauts on the Soyuz. I get to go to the space
17:09
station. Was it three or three months
17:11
ago? But for US commercial companies
17:14
and especially those that are connected to defense
17:16
applications, that's a big no, no.
17:19
And so after the war in Ukraine, Soyuz was off the table.
17:25
And so then it was just really SpaceX.
17:28
And, and then SpaceX, even though they, you know, the cost
17:33
of launch went down for them as they scaled up, they, they
17:37
continue to charge full freight for people.
17:40
And so now that you've got a big player, I mean, Blue Origin, new
17:43
Glen is the largest rocket now that's reusable.
17:47
And, you know, obviously Starship is around the corner
17:49
and, and we'll see that come online at some point if they
17:53
can, you know, work, work the kinks out.
17:55
But for all the people that were making fun of Blue Origin, like
17:59
now they've got the crown like they're the, they're the biggest
18:02
and, and will be caught the most cost effective once they get to
18:08
normal cadence. And obviously Falcon 9 still has
18:11
the, the crown in terms of reliability, reusability and,
18:17
and you know, I, I think, but I think for Blue Origin as they
18:22
could you develop the rocket like that's going to change the
18:25
landscape. And and so that's off to Scott
18:30
and Abell and the management team for taking a bet on Blue
18:33
Origin because I think I speak for everybody.
18:37
Like I think everybody was on the one hand like, Oh yeah, that
18:40
makes sense. And the other hand was like,
18:42
we're like, we're hopeful that they would go the other way and
18:47
but that that turned out to be the right one and hats off to
18:51
them. And so as I mentioned before,
18:55
you know, I going back earlier today, Scott did speak at this B
19:01
of A conference and I just wanted to touch on a few things.
19:06
So I didn't mention one of them, which is the fact that, you
19:09
know, company has booked for 75 to launch 75 satellites.
19:14
I think what that means is they probably kept Blue Origin at the
19:17
number of you know, whatever got them to 60, call it at the other
19:22
end. But then they probably my guess
19:24
is they added additional Falcon 9 launches to give them
19:28
flexibility. And then I think Scott didn't
19:32
mention it today that, you know, they may not need to use all,
19:35
all of the launches. They may just use the, you know,
19:41
the, the 60 and not need the additional 15 because I, I think
19:44
in the contracts there is flexibility with Blue Origin
19:47
where they can flex up or flex down.
19:50
And so, so we'll see. I mean, maybe they'll give some
19:52
additional color, maybe the next, you know, quarterly
19:56
update. Let me see here.
20:00
I'm just going to go through some of my notes here.
20:06
So the, they, they did talk about other vehicles as well.
20:10
And, and in addition to, you know, the company or Scott
20:16
emphasized that they, they built the satellites in such a form
20:20
factor that they will work and it's a it'll work in any
20:23
standard faring. And so today he's physically
20:26
mentioned Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H3, Europe's
20:31
Ariana 6, ELA, Vulcan or Atlas, and then of course, SpaceX Blue
20:36
Origin or sorry, SpaceX Falcon 9, Blue Origin, New Glen, India
20:40
LVM 3. And then he also shouted out
20:43
Rocket Lab, Relativity and others, which, you know, he was
20:49
saying that 2026 will still be somewhat constrained.
20:53
But by by the time 2027 rolled around, it's a company's view
20:57
that there will be plenty of launch because you got a number
21:02
of different vehicles that are coming online or will have
21:05
matured by then where though they will be, you know, reliable
21:10
vehicles that they can use. Let's see here he did talk
21:18
about, he was asked about some of the commercial contracts and
21:23
he went into a little more detail around the the make up of
21:27
those. And so, you know, there's this
21:30
idea of either on a subscription for A and this is a you know,
21:36
consumer who who subscribes through like say an ATT or
21:41
Verizon. There's the add on service where
21:43
it's split 5050 and there, you know, if a user adds the service
21:52
and they pay for, you know, some package that you could do it on,
21:56
you know, a GB or something like that, then then that would be
21:59
pretty straightforward. Or they could also do plan
22:02
inclusion where for premium plans, they would just charge
22:05
the the operator on a per subscriber basis.
22:10
And So what he was saying is like, you know, it will be up to
22:13
operators to kind of figure out what makeshift they want there.
22:17
But what he was saying though, is that there are in these
22:20
contracts, there's, you know, they continue to want to guide
22:23
people down towards revenue or sorry, these M and OS towards
22:26
revenue prepayments and then there will be minimums.
22:30
And so, you know, he did mention, and I think he was
22:35
talking about Saudi Telecom that those minimums that are in that
22:39
contract, they would be disappointed if if they don't
22:42
more, you know, well more than exceed those minimums.
22:46
And so, and it sounds like it's not just something in the Saudi
22:50
telecom contract, it's also something that exists in Verizon
22:55
and AT&T and Vodafone and others that they're, they're working
22:58
through. So I think on the commercial
23:01
side, I think we're going to be pretty surprised.
23:03
Like once their service is rolled out, there will be, you
23:10
know, the, the, the ramp, the, the ramp is going to be higher
23:12
than than we are perhaps the market things too.
23:17
But like in, in going back to the minimum revenue commitments,
23:20
he he was like, you know, these are basically floors and and
23:22
he's like these floors are, as I said before, like we the
23:27
expectation is that they're going to well outperform those
23:30
floors. And so let's hear.
23:38
Yeah. So prepayments, you know,
23:40
they'll be the prepayments will be recognized once it's applied
23:43
as the services ramped up. And then there are quarterly or
23:48
annual minimums that will need to be trued up.
23:50
And So what he was saying is that once they're at scale,
23:54
revenue recognition, at least initially will be a bit lumpy.
23:56
But then once they're at scale and they get a bunch of
23:59
subscribers on, it should be pretty smooth and it'll be
24:01
predictable. Just like you know, like normal
24:04
institutional investors, retail investors.
24:06
You like to see a subscription model like a Netflix where you
24:10
know, if a subscriber is paying 12/13/14 dollars a month or, or
24:14
in this instance, sorry, $10 a month and you get half of that.
24:19
Then as you add more subscribers and it's recurring revenue, it's
24:23
high margin. And remember, like this service
24:26
is something that people will use in, in very specific times,
24:30
but they're not going to use it constantly.
24:32
And so you can owe, you can sell it multiple times, which is
24:35
great. And, and So what he was saying
24:39
is that, you know, over time, as they scale, the revenue will be
24:43
very smooth. And as we know, like the margins
24:46
on that are going to be something you're approaching,
24:48
you know, EBITDA margins or sorry, gross margins are going
24:51
to be somewhere in the 80s, nineties percent.
24:53
So it's going to be very profitable.
24:58
And so he did get a little color around revenue and, and you
25:02
know, he talked about how they are still guiding to 50 to 75
25:06
million of revenue in the second-half of 2025.
25:09
But that's not, you know, recurring revenue.
25:13
That's not the level they expect once they're at full scale.
25:16
And he was hinted, he was saying like, you know, that that's just
25:18
like turning on the engine and it's demonstrating how the
25:23
engine works and customers are, you know, and that customers are
25:27
willing to pay for the service. But then he was saying, you
25:30
know, 2026 will be significantly above that second-half 2025
25:35
guidance. And they and he said, you know,
25:39
they think 2026 will get them perhaps the cash flow break even
25:43
like that level or above. And then 2027 will be the first
25:47
full year of commercial service in key markets.
25:49
And then he he said it, he characterized it this way.
25:53
That's when you start to build the billion dollar billion plus
25:56
revenue business. His word is not mine.
26:00
So, so yeah, that was that was quite bullish.
26:05
Let's see here just going through some of these notes, he
26:12
did have some comments around defense.
26:13
And so, you know, there's he discussed like existing programs
26:20
and novel, you know, novel applications that they can they
26:24
can target in both communications and non
26:26
communications. And so he was saying they have
26:30
in particular very, some very big opportunities within Golden
26:32
Dome. And however, the funding
26:36
structure of Golden Dome is still being worked out.
26:40
But he did say that, you know, there's that and then there's
26:45
some of these other defense opportunities, but he actually
26:47
then put some figures around it. So this year the defense
26:53
opportunity for them is 10s of millions of dollars.
26:56
And then next year he thinks it's hundreds of millions.
26:59
And then the expectation is over time it'll be a billion dollar
27:04
plus type of business. And so I think that, you know,
27:08
that fits with kind of how we've been thinking about it.
27:12
And yeah, I mean, I, I do think there is this possibility that
27:18
the defense business is going to be bigger additionally.
27:21
And then of course, you know, the commercial business will
27:23
eventually dwarf it. But especially in the early
27:26
years and when, you know, before the constellations fully
27:28
deployed, there will be this demand from on the defense side,
27:34
which I think is great. Let's see here.
27:41
The other thing is that he did talk about Legato today about
27:45
how and by the way, the Bank of America analyst, I think they've
27:49
been talking with people in DC, you know, the run regulatory
27:52
checks and from what they can tell, you know, he he was like,
27:56
yeah, I think it's going to be approved.
27:57
Like we haven't seen the issues. And Scott agreed.
27:59
He's like, yeah, based off of the feedback that they've got.
28:02
And he also, by the way, so this was an important part.
28:05
Scott mentioned that there's like this oversight board where
28:13
there's a few other branches of government that have a seat at
28:15
that that oversight board and one of them is the Department of
28:18
Defense or now Department of War.
28:21
And so whenever they'd get their various St. as or licenses
28:27
approved, like that has to go through that, that oversight
28:31
board. And, and so based off of, you
28:34
know, the feedback there and kind of the process, they think
28:37
that, you know, what has been a contentious issue with previous
28:43
legato and, and the Department of Defense, they think that this
28:46
transaction, which, you know, basically shifts the legato
28:49
transaction from or legato spectrum from peripheral use
28:53
back to what it was originally intended, which is MSS that
28:57
that's going to make the Department of War happy and that
29:01
they'll be on board. And so for I, I guess 1 nugget
29:05
that came out of it today is that they've been ready to file
29:08
the application for FCC approval for the spectrum transaction.
29:12
However, because the government's been shut down,
29:14
they haven't been able to file it yet.
29:16
But now that the government is going to be open tomorrow, we
29:22
will. He said they're going to submit
29:25
that application and then you're looking at a six to nine months,
29:29
you know, time frame to process that, which is consistent with,
29:33
you know, a normal right before review process.
29:36
And so we probably should see that Legato filing at some point
29:42
over tomorrow or the next, you know, few days.
29:44
But that's exciting, you know, data point that that was
29:48
released today. Let's hear one other interesting
29:52
thing that I guess has been kind of lost in all the market.
29:56
I've been people being excited around direct device is that
30:00
Scott mentioned this and it is key point of emphasis which I
30:03
think is important is that you know for devices to work with,
30:09
you know satellites today like ASD space mobile's initial
30:13
approach and the main approach is to work on cellular
30:17
frequency. So, you know, 600, nine, 900
30:20
megahertz then, you know, Scott emphasized today like that's
30:24
there's 1000 megahertz of cellular spectrum that works
30:26
today on phones. Those frequencies already work
30:29
on phones. And so that's what we that was
30:32
our original approach in the business and, and that's what
30:35
gives you the best coverage. You know, it gives you access to
30:40
the most subscribers. And then, but now, you know,
30:43
this was in response to a question from the analyst who
30:46
was asking about, hey, you know, So what happens if global star
30:49
cells or, you know, if Iridium cells?
30:51
And, and Scott was like, well, first, you know, I want to make
30:54
it clear, like we, we are uniquely differentiated because
30:57
we can work with existing cell phones.
30:59
Today, we're using cellular spectrum that has great, you
31:02
know, coverage and propagation characteristics.
31:06
And then when the opportunity came to add MSS spectrum, which
31:11
is legato then and you know, you want to have additional spectrum
31:15
to, to then improve the capacity of the service.
31:18
Like that's what we did. However, these other players,
31:20
whether that's you know, if it's global star and whatever they're
31:26
trying to figure out to do or if it's Iridium or Scarling for
31:29
that matter, scarling today for those don't that don't know
31:33
operates at 1900 megahertz, which is in fact, I mean it's
31:37
1990. So it's effectively MSS
31:40
spectrum, it's T-mobile's PCSG block.
31:44
And so that spectrum you need to have, you know, Omnitruck, the
31:49
views of the sky, it can work maybe potentially in your house,
31:54
but not very well. It's not cellular spectrum.
31:56
I mean, it's, it's designated as cellular spectrum, but full
31:59
intensive purposes given the where that's basically 2
32:02
gigahertz, it's not the terrestrial spectrum that's
32:06
that's good for propagation and coverage.
32:08
And so that's a key differentiation point where
32:11
Starlink today only works in mid band spectrum.
32:14
And then, you know, in 2027 when they're able to utilize the
32:20
spectrum they bought from Echostar, which is AWS 4, that's
32:23
two gigahertz as well. And so they're still going to,
32:29
if they want to compete at a similar service level, which is,
32:32
you know, there Apple has talked about this idea of, of, you
32:37
know, the a, a positive user experience where you can just
32:41
use the phone. You don't have to worry about
32:42
plenty of the sky or doing all these things like that's not
32:44
global star, that's not already in, that's not what Starlink is.
32:48
That's going to be AST space mobile because they're using
32:51
solar spectrum. Now Starlink could eventually do
32:54
that. They could try to roll out
32:57
satellites that will do low band spectrum and that would need a
33:01
different phased array. And it is a different satellite
33:05
similar to AST. The block 2 satellites are low
33:09
band cellular spectrum. They're focused on that.
33:11
Block 3 will be mid band spectrum and you know, and that
33:15
will be a a separate satellite. But yeah, startling could do
33:18
that. But they'll have to change their
33:21
architecture in order to work with low band spectrum.
33:24
So they'll have to get a larger phased array.
33:28
They'll need to do fixed cells instead of regenerative
33:31
architecture. So they'll have to put down beam
33:34
cells that are very precise to avoid interference because with
33:37
cellular spectrum, there's already terrestrial towers out
33:39
there and you have to like basically fill in all the holes
33:42
where those towers don't cover. And so there's a lot of
33:46
challenges there. And so I think that's like, you
33:50
know, it's a, it's a point, a very important point that is a
33:52
nuance that I think journalists aren't going to know.
33:56
A lot of investors aren't going to know.
33:58
But for the people who really dig in, it's like, oh, this
34:00
service is going to be way better because it uses cellular
34:03
spectrum and you have a satellite that can that can
34:08
navigate, you know, without interfering with other
34:11
terrestrial towers. And so that was an important
34:14
point, which I'm not sure that the BB analyst guy totally got
34:17
it, but we get it. There was a question about,
34:25
let's see, technology differentiation.
34:28
And you know, this is an important too, which is, you
34:33
know, the fact that AC satellites are, Scott would
34:36
characterize it as they're dumb satellites, right?
34:39
Like they're vent pipe architecture.
34:40
They, they're smart at like collecting signals and putting
34:43
down beams. They have a lot of power.
34:44
They can like listen, but basically they take the
34:47
information and then they, they, you know, on a cellular
34:50
frequency and then they package it into, they put it all
34:53
together and then they beam it down on, on QV band spectrum,
34:58
which is higher, higher, higher band spectrum.
35:01
And then that actually the brains, the, the rain
35:04
architecture is actually on the ground, right?
35:06
And so that integrates into the MNO's core network.
35:10
But all the brains happens on the ground.
35:11
And so the satellites like where do you go from 5G to six GI
35:15
mean? I remember speaking to a bell
35:17
years ago. He's like, yeah, we could do 7
35:18
GHG, whatever it is, right? Like your technology, your
35:21
protocol agnostic because you're just collecting signals and
35:24
putting them back down. And the issue with these, some
35:27
of these other architectures is that if there's any changes to
35:33
the protocols or, you know, and if there's any updates to the
35:38
technology, you basically have to replace all the satellites.
35:40
Whereas with AST, it's just, it's basically almost, it's not
35:44
this, but I'll just call it like it's a signal repeater.
35:47
It, it catches signals and then it puts them back down on Earth
35:49
and all the intelligence happens on Earth.
35:51
Now, obviously there's a lot of processing that goes into
35:55
collecting those signals, bring them together and then beaming
35:57
back down to Earth and, and, and obviously like how you listen to
36:00
them and, and beaming cells down.
36:01
That's, that's really important. But from a technological
36:07
standpoint in, in, in finding obsolescence like these, these
36:11
satellites work with existing MNO carrier networks.
36:14
And so by doing that, they're more friendly.
36:17
They, you know, the MN OS have control over the data versus
36:21
like Starlink where Starling gets the data, they have control
36:25
of the customer and then they, they, they pass on that the
36:28
information eventually to the MNO.
36:29
But this is a huge point of competitive differentiation.
36:35
Another thing is that he mentioned today about the ASICS,
36:40
how, you know, even if Intel or anybody wanted to create an
36:43
ASIC, that's a five year process.
36:45
Now maybe that's, maybe that's a bit, you know, for someone like
36:51
SpaceX that maybe they can do an ASIC in three years or two
36:54
years. I, I know someone at least
36:55
claimed like they can do it in two years, but it took the
36:59
company five years and they, they, they invested in, in the
37:04
ASIC. And then of course the, the very
37:06
satellite programs, they've been invested now I think well over
37:08
$2 billion. And so, yeah, this stuff is
37:11
pretty hard and it's not easy to do and it takes time.
37:15
You, you can throw so much money at a problem, but but you also
37:18
need time and you have to test things and fix them.
37:22
And so anyway, but you know, he obviously made the point about
37:26
having a very large phased array and that being able to connect
37:30
to a satellite or sorry, to a phone, a very small device with
37:33
a small, you know, small power, small antenna.
37:36
And so that's a huge different point of differentiation where
37:39
that connection is going to be much stronger versus a
37:42
competitor as a phase array that's much smaller.
37:46
Let me just see here already talked about military, the size
37:53
of that business. Let's see here.
38:01
Yeah, I mean, so those were some of the key takeaways.
38:03
I, I think he also there, I mean, he actually covered quite
38:06
a bit of ground in, in this discussion, but it's a lot of
38:10
stuff that in the we already know.
38:15
But yeah, I, I do want to talk a little bit about what lies
38:17
ahead. And so I know today is like,
38:20
it's a crappy day for markets. I mean, I was looking at just
38:25
growth stocks in general and my guy was an absolute blood
38:27
bloodbath. And, you know, there are some
38:29
sectors that probably are overvalued and, and yeah, I
38:36
wouldn't be surprised. I didn't, I wasn't surprised to
38:38
see some names down like 10 percent, 11%, but it was just
38:41
across the board. Like I think obviously, look, a
38:44
lot of spec growth, high data names have have performed quite
38:49
well over this past year. And that's that's an
38:51
understatement. Like they've done extremely
38:53
well. But today it was just massive de
38:56
risking, right? And so I'm not really sure I, I
39:00
think the government shutdown and, and the economic numbers
39:02
that are coming out or looking pretty bad.
39:04
And, you know, like today, and I guess I'll talk about this since
39:07
it was a headline, Verizon, I think one of the headlines is
39:11
like, they're going to lay off 10,000.
39:12
And then it was 15,000. Now it's like 20,000.
39:16
Bloomberg overnight saying they're going to have 20,000.
39:18
And I think to me that's not unexpected because I think a lot
39:23
of the carriers are, are quite bloated.
39:25
And candidly, I think they've been, you know, they just
39:29
appointed a new CEO who's going to try to reinvigorate things
39:32
and, and drive growth for the company.
39:34
And, and they're, they're cutting some employees that
39:37
they're also removing some of their own direct distribution.
39:40
And maybe they're going to start looking to sell phones at the
39:43
retail level through distributors versus their own
39:46
own, their, their internally owned stores.
39:51
But yeah, I, I, I think obviously carriers are under
39:55
tremendous pressure. And so, you know, to a lay
39:58
person, they might be like, well, if Verizon trouble like is
40:01
that, is that a bad thing for HDCH mobile?
40:03
And it's like, no, that's actually a good thing.
40:06
It's a good thing that from a perspective of they're under
40:10
pressure to deliver growth #1 and #2 they're, they're clearly
40:13
cutting people because they're trying to cut costs and increase
40:18
margins. And so lo and behold, you've got
40:20
this company called AST Space Mobile.
40:22
They just signed a commercial agreement.
40:26
I guess it's been at three weeks now.
40:27
What does AST do for them? Well, number one, it gives them
40:31
a new service to sell to their customers and it and that
40:35
service is going to be increase ARPU average revenue per user
40:39
per month. That service is also going to
40:42
reduce churn, which is a huge pain point for M and OS for an
40:46
M&O to acquire a new subscriber. It's like a few $100 right like
40:50
they have to they, they buy you out of your plan or they might
40:53
give you a new phone. There's marketing costs
40:55
associated with that and so it's expensive to acquire new
40:59
customers. And but on the flip side, the
41:03
you know, so, so this is a selling point.
41:05
You know, they can go after T-Mobile customers.
41:07
Maybe they'll go after, if they position the right way, they
41:09
might win some AT&T customers, which of course AT&T is going to
41:12
offer a similar type of service and they're going to, you know,
41:17
maybe get some rise of customers.
41:18
But the idea is that both of them are going to point their
41:21
guns at T-Mobile and just take all those customers, right.
41:25
But aside from acquiring customers like this whole
41:29
service, if, if you can imagine being able to tell someone like,
41:33
Hey, you're going to have 100% guaranteed coverage no matter
41:37
where you are, That's going to reduce churn, right?
41:40
Churn is like a big it's, it's much easier to keep an existing
41:45
customer. You don't have to go out and buy
41:47
them, but if you can satisfy them, then they'll just keep
41:49
paying their monthly bills and they'll upgrade their phone.
41:52
And you know, there's all kinds of things that are good about
41:55
keeping somebody at your service.
41:56
And so for Verizon on the subscriber side is huge.
42:00
So it's like we're going to sell you a new service, we're going
42:02
to add more value, we're going to be able to raise pricing
42:04
because you you think the value is worth more and you're not
42:07
going to leave. And then on the flip side, or
42:10
not the flip side, going down the cost curve or the cost side
42:14
for Verizon, it's like, OK, so we can also save Cap X.
42:18
Like some of these rural areas that I was planning to build a
42:22
tower. I don't have to do that anymore.
42:24
I'm just going to cover it with satellite or I've got this tower
42:29
in, you know, rural Mississippi. I've got a whole swath of towers
42:33
and, and they're barely being used.
42:36
I'm just going to decommission them.
42:37
And each of those towers, I'm going to save a few 100,000
42:39
bucks a year. And so it's a huge CapEx story
42:43
because like you don't have to expand your network and in some
42:46
ways you can shrink your network.
42:48
The terrestrial towers, right? You don't have to pay for those
42:51
expensive leases to whoever, you know, that tower is sitting on a
42:55
building or, or maybe the transmitters are on a building
42:59
or they're in someone's, you know, property right off the
43:03
highway. You don't have to pay that.
43:05
You don't have to pay the electricity that's going to it.
43:07
You don't have to pay a lot of things.
43:08
And so, so yeah, it's a huge CapEx story where they can save
43:13
money. And so I think, you know, today
43:17
with Verizon making its move and, and you know, T-Mobile too,
43:20
they just replaced Sievert with this other, this other internal
43:26
Deutsche Telekom guy. I guess my, I guess John Stanky
43:31
is like the only one left standing out of the original
43:34
the, or the three CE OS. But yeah, the carriers are all
43:38
under pressure, which on the flip side, like on the one hand,
43:42
they're under pressure, but also I think they're, they have this
43:45
tremendous opportunity, right? Because like if you think about
43:49
AI and edge computing and connecting drones and all these
43:51
things, like these carriers in some respects are well
43:55
positioned because they're, they're going to be, they're
43:57
going to be connecting all these devices.
43:59
And so, but you know, they've, they've, they're driven by the
44:03
profit motive. They've got a, they've got a,
44:05
you know, deliver results. And so today's news on Verizon,
44:09
I think just kind of underscores the the need for these companies
44:13
to put forward a service that's that's going to captivate and
44:17
delight customers and, and on one hand.
44:20
And then on the other hand, it's going to save them a lot of
44:22
money. And so there's not many, there's
44:26
not many things out there that can do that.
44:28
And so, you know, the AST space mobile service is going to be
44:31
great. But yeah, today sucked.
44:34
The market is bad. I think I do, you know, for, for
44:40
some of these speculative areas, yeah, it, it's, I guess it's not
44:44
a surprise and it's, it's healthy.
44:47
But I do think just given some of the economics, economic
44:50
numbers we're seeing and, and obviously the, the market's kind
44:52
of flying blind here where we haven't been able to get labor
44:56
data inflation because the government's been shut down.
44:58
And so the markets, I'll be more uncertain than it has to be.
45:02
But I still think for AST space mobile, like we've got a number
45:07
of huge catalysts. And so we're set up quite well
45:10
heading into the end of the year.
45:11
Now obviously if the market crashes, it's going to crash and
45:14
and I don't think it will. I think this administration is
45:17
incentivized to keep the market somewhat stable, if not going
45:21
up. I also just look at what the new
45:26
one of the New York Fed governors was saying is that I
45:28
think bank reserves are quite low.
45:30
And, you know, we've already shifted from ending of QT and,
45:33
and it sounds like, it sounds like the Fed is going to start
45:38
making asset purchases in order to build up reserves.
45:40
And so that's going to be introducing liquidity into the
45:43
system. And we know what that does.
45:45
And I, I, I'm on the, I'm in the camp that I, I think we did
45:49
another cut interest rate cut in December.
45:53
Obviously the Fed doesn't want, you know, they were a bit more
45:56
balanced about discussing that. And yeah, there's, it's not
45:59
guaranteed. And of course, like they're
46:00
going to inject some uncertainty to keep, keep things somewhat
46:04
constrained, but I, I think they, they will have to cut
46:06
rates. But anyway, I, I, I think as
46:10
long as the market doesn't completely unravel, we've got a
46:14
bunch of great things that are coming up.
46:16
So we've got, you know, obviously Bluebird 6 is in
46:19
India, it's being integrated into LVM 3 and that's going to
46:23
go up the first recycling of December in the next two weeks.
46:27
We've got Bluebird 7 that will be delivered to Florida and that
46:32
will launch probably mid to late December.
46:35
And then also in December, we will have at least according to
46:41
the timeline, we'll have two potentially 2 batches of 3/3
46:47
Bluebirds ready. So call it BB8 through BB 13.
46:52
So 6 satellites potentially ready in December, you know, do
46:57
they ship in December? Who knows, but you know, they'll
46:59
probably be delivered sometime in January or early January and
47:03
launch sometime in January. And so, so there's a lot of,
47:09
there's a lot of big catalysts that are coming up.
47:11
And, and when you couple that with the fact that, you know,
47:16
now that the government's reopened and we started to see
47:19
some of the, the comments to AST Space Mobile's application for
47:23
U.S. market access, that process is coming to a head.
47:27
And so we could see. And I know chair Carr had
47:33
chairman Brandon Carr had had put out a tweet saying, you
47:36
know, there's a lot of things that you got to do to get back
47:40
into the seat and, you know, start reviewing different
47:44
applications and start proving things or whatever.
47:46
But I, I do think we have a really good shot of getting FCC
47:51
approval for U.S. market access by the end of the year.
47:55
And, and that's something that, you know, most space mobile
47:59
investors have been waiting for years and, and no, but I'm not
48:03
sure the market actually understands or knows that.
48:07
So that could be a big, big potential, you know, positive.
48:11
And then of course, we've got, you know, the DoD, whether
48:15
that's the, the, the recent government win that we had,
48:19
which still needs to be worked out.
48:21
You know, once the government opens, I think we'll get more
48:23
details about that or, or the company said they were awarded
48:26
it, but they had to wait. This was the 9th award because,
48:31
you know, the government was closed.
48:32
But then you also have golden Dome wards that, you know,
48:34
potentially could be coming out the next few weeks.
48:38
Yeah. And so I, I think though the
48:41
biggest, the biggest catalysts are, and the most visible are
48:46
the 2 launches in, in, in December.
48:51
And then the delivery, hopefully of those, you know, whether it's
48:56
four or five or six Bluebird satellites, at least.
48:59
I mean, imagine like the press release that's going to come out
49:01
where it's like, hey, we, we've, we've completed six of these
49:04
things. You know, like that's going to
49:06
be pretty huge. And then, you know, we're
49:08
shipping them to Florida and then they're going to launch in
49:11
January and there's going to be a get together and whatever it
49:14
is, right. And so we're kind of in this
49:17
really exciting phase, which I, I know the, and, and now that
49:22
like Blue Origin, new Glen launched and landed
49:24
successfully. It's really up to the company to
49:26
deliver now, right? Like now it's, it's getting
49:29
those freaking control sets completed because the microns
49:33
like they can, they're, they're producing those like hotcakes,
49:36
right? And so it's a matter of making
49:39
sure that those composite shell control sets get done on time
49:44
and made it to the microns and then put out the door.
49:50
And so now the the race is on basically.
49:53
And so I think, yeah, I mean, it's a pretty exciting time.
49:57
Like today the market sucked and you know, I I bought more on the
50:02
dip and then and yeah, I was able to pick some up even under
50:06
60, which is kind of nuts, although not, not that nuts
50:10
because I, you know, I think that it wasn't that long ago
50:14
that we were at 60 before. And so I mean, the fact that we
50:17
even had 100th like that was kind of crazy.
50:20
And it will probably happen again like in the coming weeks,
50:24
months that I'm, I feel pretty certain about.
50:28
But yeah, today I think going back to what the original part
50:32
of, of discussion like Blue Origin, New Glen Land, you know,
50:36
launching and landing, I mean, I think for on behalf of everyone
50:40
I can it, it was a huge, huge moment for the company and for
50:48
the space industry and I and I think, yeah, I I was just elated
50:54
and relieved at the same time, because I think that DE risked
50:58
quite a bit for us. And I think Scott, I really
51:02
didn't mention this before, but let me look here I was in my
51:08
notes. I mean for, for Scott.
51:12
Oh, the other the other thing you mentioned about launches
51:14
that you know, they were proactive in de risking launch
51:19
and he he did mention that they still are actively signing or
51:23
looking to sign more launch contracts.
51:24
So take that for what it's worth.
51:27
I assume that some of these other providers, I think you
51:33
know, a Bell Mansion MHI, that probably is one that makes
51:36
sense. If it not, if not economically
51:39
for commercial and political reasons, launching on a Japanese
51:44
rocket, one or two blue birds like that would be a good idea,
51:47
I think. But yeah, what it what an
51:50
exciting day. I mean, it's it's a crappy day
51:53
and you know, I've had a pretty painful drawdown since since the
51:56
peak. But like I said before, anyone
52:01
listening, it's, you know, when you, when you do achieve your
52:06
price objectives, like it's always a good, good idea to take
52:09
some profits and put, put that aside, put aside taxes and, and
52:13
so then you can just ride the rest of the policy, right?
52:16
And so on days like today, I didn't really even care about
52:20
the market because I was focused on Blue Origin, New Glenn.
52:22
And when that went off, that made my day.
52:24
And I, I think everyone's going to focus on the macro, but once
52:30
everyone gets backed, once things kind of settle and people
52:35
focus back on company specific, you know, issues and, and
52:39
milestones and things like that, I think this, today's successful
52:43
launch of landing is going to reframe the AST space mobile
52:48
investment case. And I think for, for bears and,
52:51
you know, people who, you know, will throw things at the company
52:56
that there's no capacity or you're beholding to SpaceX, it's
52:59
like, no, we're not, we're not. SpaceX is a great partner.
53:03
Falcon 9 has been wonderful. We, we have used them.
53:07
They've put up all of our satellites with the exception of
53:09
Blue Walker one and we will continue to use them and, and
53:12
they've been great. But now we've got another
53:15
partner, we've got two other partners and we're looking for
53:18
more because we've got a lot of satellites launch, not just, you
53:22
know, 65 to sorry, 45 to 60, but looking to launch in excess of
53:28
100, right. And so we're, we're as Scott
53:31
mentioned today, we're fully funded for well over 100.
53:34
And it looks like, you know, we're going to be launching mid
53:38
band or start rolling out mid band Bluebirds by the end of
53:40
next year. And so, yeah, it's a, it's a
53:42
very exciting time. But anyway, I've been rambling.
53:46
I hope this was informative and helpful.
53:49
And I think, yeah, everyone should be everyone should crack
53:53
open a beer or what, however you choose to celebrate.
53:56
But today was an amazing day. And and I know no one likes to
54:00
lose money, but the Blue Origin, New Glen News, I think once it
54:05
sinks in, people start really understanding what the
54:08
implications are of that. And that this goes for not just
54:11
a CS face bubble, but for other companies.
54:12
I mean, like Rocket Lab Day, what a great, you know, success
54:17
that they were able to get those two satellites up there, which,
54:21
you know, I think some people don't know that, but Rocket Lab,
54:23
those the two Escapade satellites were made by Rocket
54:25
Lab. And so so that's that's a great,
54:28
you know, accomplishment for them.
54:30
But yeah, this has been good for the US space program and and
54:34
it's what this administration, what future administrations want
54:37
and what the MCC and NASA to have this abundance of riches,
54:43
right, of launch, launch is going to be great.
54:46
And so anyway, I'll I'll end it there.
54:49
Let me just, I guess I'll just take a quick look at see if
54:52
there's any comments here. Let's see.
55:00
Presumably every country will need their own ground station
55:03
for sovereignty purposes. Is this a complex operation more
55:06
so than what we're already doing?
55:08
Think of Iridium and etcetera orbits.
55:12
Yeah, I mean the way that so this person.
55:14
Thanks for the question. The way that the satellites are
55:17
architected is that they send down, they send down signals and
55:22
you need a ground station when the ground station is where the
55:25
brains are. And so you can architect these
55:26
things two ways. You can either put all the
55:28
brains in the satellite or you can put all the brains on on the
55:32
ground. And when you have a, an
55:36
architecture where we put all the brains in the satellite, if
55:38
there's any changes you need to do, then, you know, you have to
55:43
change satellite. Like if protocols change or if
55:46
anything new technology comes out, that satellite has to be
55:50
changed. And also it requires more power
55:52
to have more complexity versus having a gateway, a gateway
56:00
where the brains are on the, on the ground and, and the
56:02
satellite just sending stuff down.
56:03
But to your question, like, does that introduce complexity?
56:06
It does in the sense that you, you know, over multiple
56:11
countries, you might well in the EU, for example, the EU is going
56:15
to be comfortable in landing all the data in Germany, for
56:18
example, or, or Spain. But in some smaller countries,
56:22
yeah, it could introduce a bit more complexity.
56:26
But I'm sure the the company can work that out.
56:30
You know, like for example, Saudi telecom covers Kingdom
56:34
Saudi Arabia, but they also cover was I think 13 other
56:37
countries. And so my guess is that they
56:39
will use those gateways in Saudi Arabia and perhaps a few other
56:43
countries, but to provide all the management of that data if
56:50
you're STC, you know, customer in those other countries or in
56:55
in King of Saudi Arabia. But yeah, I I have been thinking
56:59
about that. I mean, it is going to be a bit
57:01
more complex, but I feel quite confident the company has
57:04
thought about that and and we'll work it out.
57:08
Let's see. Any insight into the production
57:10
cadence and stage ones for New Glenn?
57:13
Apparently they have many stage twos already.
57:15
Well, Scott mentioned it today and I mean, he didn't say the
57:19
exact number, but he said they've got a bunch of boost
57:23
stage 1 boosters in production or, or ready.
57:26
And so, you know, he's been at the factory.
57:30
I think he spends quite a amount of time down there.
57:33
So, so yeah, I take him for his word.
57:37
But I, I don't know if that means like there's three of them
57:39
ready or there's two or or five or you know, but I will tell you
57:45
like they have, they have an extra 1 because the one they
57:48
launched today landed so, so they can use that one again.
57:54
Let's see when you believe this revenue ramp will start up.
57:56
Well, I mean we already have revenue ramp right now.
57:58
We've got 50 to 75,000,000 this second-half.
58:02
And then Scott mentioned that, you know, in terms of gateway
58:05
sales, they're expecting that to what average 10 million a month.
58:08
And then they've got military contracts that are kicking in.
58:11
I think he mentioned they're hoping to get into the hundreds
58:15
or 100 million next year. And the commercial side, I
58:18
think, you know, you're going to start seeing some ramp.
58:22
And so my guess, I mean, I think the street has maybe it's like
58:28
I, I, you know what, I don't want to speak here, but I think,
58:31
you know, I would expect us to have next year have maybe 200
58:34
million of revenue or so. I mean, we'll see, but that's
58:38
going to ramp up quickly into billions, right?
58:41
The following year, once commercial service is launched,
58:44
you'd probably in 2027, you're looking at several 100 million
58:48
to up to a billion if of course, timing goes right.
58:52
But but yeah, the ramp is going to be pretty insane.
58:54
So hold on to your diaper. Let's see, just looking at some
59:03
of these questions, some of them are not questions.
59:11
Let's see, if the service is oversold, couldn't that lead to
59:15
a scenario like a national disaster where people expect AST
59:17
service but they're unable to deliver decent speeds?
59:21
Yeah. So you can throttle people.
59:22
I mean, what the company's going to do, for example, and some of
59:26
these develop developing nations is that they are going to sell
59:29
lower speed plans. And you can overbook a satellite
59:32
and deliver basically throttle everyone.
59:34
So not everyone's going to, in a, in a lower, you know, in a
59:37
developing country, if people are paying a lower fee, they
59:41
might get, you know, speeds that are 1 megabits per second or two
59:46
megabits per second, something much slower.
59:48
But then you can have more simultaneous users on that
59:52
service. And so during a disaster, if
59:56
there's a lot of people that need service and the network's
59:58
wiped out and you've got to get everybody online, yeah, you
1:00:02
could throw all the service where of course, like you're not
1:00:04
going to let someone watch Netflix while everyone's trying
1:00:06
to call their loved ones. Like you might just allow people
1:00:09
to. Do texting and some level of
1:00:13
voice you might throw everybody during during that period of
1:00:16
time. But there is an ability to,
1:00:19
yeah, manage, manage the services in such a way where you
1:00:23
get everybody connectivity because it's important.
1:00:25
But then not everyone's going to be doing full broadband like
1:00:29
it's going to be throttled back. Someone's asking, is this the
1:00:36
start of the demise of Mr. Musk? No, I would not.
1:00:40
I would not go out on a limb and say that SpaceX is going to do
1:00:44
just fine. If anything, it's going to keep
1:00:46
them honest, right? Like they're going to have to
1:00:48
lower the prices and innovate more and which they already do,
1:00:53
to be fair. And so, but what I think Blue
1:00:57
Origin, what it does is it introduces another launch
1:01:00
provider and for customers that's good.
1:01:02
There's choice and it's going to bring down prices.
1:01:04
And yeah, I mean, competition is good.
1:01:08
Just like for ASD Space Mobile, they've got to compete with
1:01:11
Starlink and, and perhaps, you know, another player at some
1:01:14
point. But there's room.
1:01:16
There's room and there's enough economics and yeah, the market's
1:01:20
going to be big. So I think that's it.
1:01:23
I've been rambling on now for an hour.
1:01:27
Maybe I'll cut it there. But yeah, an exciting day.
1:01:30
I think everybody should celebrate.
1:01:33
You know, I, I joke about the markets, you know, we haven't
1:01:36
been this oversold since tomorrow.
1:01:38
I mean, we'll see what tomorrow and the next few days bring.
1:01:41
But putting aside all that near term stuff, it's an exciting
1:01:46
time for the company. Like we're on the cusp of multi
1:01:49
launch campaign and commercial service.
1:01:51
And today, when Scott was Speaking of Bank of America,
1:01:56
like some of these things that he was saying he's following,
1:01:58
putting numbers around it, it just got me really excited.
1:02:01
And then to see Blue Origin launch and land, that just gave
1:02:07
me a huge sense of, yeah, excitement.
1:02:11
Like we've got a lot of great things going on.
1:02:13
And to have your workhorse vehicle working like that,
1:02:19
that's, that's a huge relief. So anyway, thanks everyone for
1:02:22
joining. And yeah, we'll speak again.
1:02:25
We'll see. I'm going to, just like
1:02:27
everyone, spend this evening reading articles about the
1:02:30
launch and and watching videos again and reliving it.
1:02:34
But thanks everyone for joining. We'll talk again, too.
1:02:39
Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
1:02:42
If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
1:02:45
podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
1:02:48
media, or leave a rating and review.
1:02:51
To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
1:02:55
sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
1:02:57
next time. We're doing something very, very
1:03:03
big, and I think with this technology we can really affect
1:03:06
billion lives. AFT Space Mobile is the only
1:03:09
company that has proven technology to deliver cellular
1:03:13
mobile connectivity directly from space to the everyday
1:03:17
smartphone. People will just basically turn
1:03:19
their phone and be seamless, regardless of where you are.
1:03:23
We don't want the user to know that it's connected by
1:03:25
satellite. Our role is to bring this into
1:03:29
reality, always in partnership with the animal.
1:03:38
Listen, Waffles.