Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - Need for Speed: Bluebird 6 and the Race for 5G Space Dominance

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Anpanman - Need for Speed: Bluebird 6 and the Race for 5G Space Dominance · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
0:10
Where we just basically turn the phone be seamless, regardless of
0:14
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.
0:27
Hey everyone and thanks for joining.
0:29
I wanted to fire fire up a space and just talk about ASD 6 mobile
0:35
quickly because I think the tweet overnight definitely is
0:39
worthy of discussion. And so for those that don't
0:42
know, yesterday this company HEO Space published a photo which
0:50
they took of Bluebird 6 with the antenna array fully deployed.
0:54
You can see the large phased array in the foreground and then
0:58
in the back of the tuna can that we call it, you can see a bit a
1:02
bit of the tail. And so what's great is that now
1:07
we obviously have visual confirmation.
1:09
Probably, you know, the company would have preferred not to have
1:13
had this image out there because I think the, the fully deployed
1:17
satellite, they would have probably have liked to have kept
1:20
under wraps for as long as possible.
1:22
Just from a competitive perspective.
1:25
Although you can assume that any competitor that wanted to get a
1:29
look at this thing probably could pay any number of
1:33
companies to get a picture of it.
1:36
And I'm sure the Chinese have analyzed it very closely with
1:39
the, the various space assets that they have.
1:42
But but yeah, it was great to see the, the satellite out there
1:46
in space. And then we were fortunate
1:49
enough to get HD Space Mobile to retweet it.
1:52
Obviously the cat's out of the bag.
1:53
So they decided, hey, let's just go ahead and go with this and
1:57
we'll, we'll turn this into a cool tweet.
2:01
And so they, importantly, they talked about the fact that they,
2:06
they gave a hint as to the performance of these Block 2
2:11
satellites. And so in the tweet, they say
2:14
take a peek at Bluebird 6, the largest commercial
2:16
communications array in Leo, a seed from space, 2400 square
2:20
feet designed to connect directly to everyday
2:22
smartphones, expected to greatly exceed 120 megabits per second
2:26
peak data speeds. And so I wanted to talk about
2:29
that in particular, especially in light of SpaceX coming out
2:34
very publicly at Mobile World Congress talking about achieving
2:39
potential 150 megabits per second, 150 megabits per second
2:45
peak speeds for their V2 satellites.
2:48
And so, you know, this is something that they pounded the
2:52
table on. And then of course, the, the
2:54
company's proxies, which of course AST has proxies as well,
2:58
which are, which are people like me.
3:01
But some of the X proxies for SpaceX, you know, they, they
3:06
pushed out that information, which was a bit, you know, I
3:10
would say not fully accurate because then I, you know, the,
3:14
the folks that were pushing this information were saying that
3:17
individual users could get 150 megabits per second, you know,
3:22
peak data speeds, which is true if there's only one user in a
3:26
cell. But then if there are multiple
3:27
users in the cell, then they would have to divide that speed
3:29
amongst them. It's just like the analogy would
3:32
be, you know, cable Internet, if everybody in your neighborhood
3:36
is using it, then the speeds go down because that the throughput
3:40
for a particular part of the neighborhood is shared.
3:42
And so obviously not everybody is, is on the Internet at the
3:46
same time or they're not doing something super data intensive.
3:50
And so it's rare that you will really feel the pinch, you know,
3:55
if, if a bunch of people are using it all the same time, most
3:59
unless you're streaming something.
4:01
But even then, for example, on your phone, if you're watching
4:04
video, that's typically, you know, degrade it down.
4:07
Maybe it's standard definition because on the small screen, you
4:09
don't need obviously the high resolution.
4:13
But but yeah, this, this disclosure from AST, they, they
4:17
talked about expectations to greatly exceed 120 megabits per
4:22
second. And by the way, AST is under the
4:24
same constraints. That's 120 megabits per second
4:27
within a cell, right? And so within that cell, that
4:32
footprint, if there's like 5 users, then they're, they're not
4:35
going to get unless 1, you know, 1 user is, is doing something
4:39
and the other four are, are reading, but they don't need
4:41
the, you know, it's not drawing data demands.
4:43
Then they would get under 20 megabits per second peak speeds.
4:46
But if all five are using at the same time, then you would have
4:49
to divide that capacity by all 5.
4:53
But the disclosure they think key thing that I'm interested in
4:56
and this is by the way, this, this 120 megabits per second
4:58
figure is something that the company has you know, or
5:03
disclosed and and presented at length for a number of years.
5:07
And in order to achieve that, you obviously need additional
5:11
spectrum, right? Because at least for now, what's
5:14
disclosed is that we're, we're currently around 4/4 bits per
5:19
Hertz in terms of throughput, but that's expected to improve.
5:23
And I'll talk a bit more about that.
5:25
But you know, 120 megabits is something that they kind of
5:29
viewed as the standard that they're looking to achieve.
5:32
That said, there are other technologies out there that the
5:36
company will bring to bear, which is like MIMO where you
5:39
utilize 2 satellites to increase capacity and throughput for
5:45
specific cells. So they're both beaming down to
5:48
that cell. Then you also have carrier
5:50
aggregation. What does that mean?
5:52
You're actually sewing together a bunch of different spectrum
5:56
and if your phone has the ability to do carrier
5:58
aggregation, then you know, then then you can achieve even
6:02
higher, higher speeds. And so, you know, AST space
6:05
mobile satellites can do two of those things together to
6:09
increase throughput, right. And so, but besides that, you
6:13
know, there are other technologies like Cohere, which
6:16
is using different frequency, you know, adjustments where they
6:22
can potentially increase throughput of terrestrial and
6:24
satellite networks, you know, several multiples.
6:28
But this disclosure last night, though, it's unclear what
6:33
they're referring to, you know, what technology would be used to
6:37
greatly exceed 120 megabits per second.
6:39
It may just be that the satellite, the performance is
6:43
going to be higher an individual satellite.
6:45
And so that's what I wanted to focus on where this disclosure,
6:49
you know, perhaps, and this would be a master class type of
6:52
move, but for AST to kind of stick with 120 and just, you
6:56
know, keep keep pounding the table on that.
7:00
It would be really funny if that's that was part of the
7:03
plan. Like we're going to keep pushing
7:04
1:20. And then of course, you know,
7:06
SpaceX, not to be outdone Starlink says, hey, we're going
7:08
to do 150 when in fact in their back pocket AST is like actually
7:13
the real number is 200, but we're not going to we're not
7:15
going to spring that on everyone until the the constellations up
7:18
and running. And that's that's actually a
7:20
possibility, right. And so going back to what let,
7:23
let's talk about SpaceX and Starling for a second.
7:25
So for Starling to achieve right now, I think they get around 4
7:29
megabits per second or six megabits per second per cell to
7:32
be shared by all users with their current generation direct
7:35
to cell satellites. It was called MV one.
7:39
They have a very small phased ray.
7:40
It's like 2.5 meters by 2.5 meters around there, but they're
7:46
really, you know, crappy service.
7:47
It's minimally viable product, right?
7:50
It's it's for texting low band data.
7:52
Even recently the I forgot what the advertising association is
7:57
association is called but T-Mobile has because of
8:00
complaints they had to walk back their claims, right that they
8:03
can do broadband data or any of this stuff.
8:06
But but they're going to be coming out with this V2
8:08
satellite. It's much bigger.
8:10
And so it's kind of funny because the industry used to be
8:12
like, hey, we don't need something big and what ASD is
8:15
doing is terrifying. But then everybody is moving
8:17
towards bigger satellites because that's what you need in
8:20
order to communicate to a low powered antenna in your phone.
8:24
You're going to need a very large aperture that's
8:26
high-powered and can beam down very accurate and effective, you
8:32
know, signals to your phone. And so Starlink is moving.
8:37
They're, they're, they're developing this new satellite
8:40
called V2. It's going to have a 5m by 5m
8:43
array, so much bigger, but not as big obviously as what AST is
8:47
wielding. And this is either going to have
8:52
20 kilowatts of power generation versus what AST is doing today,
8:55
which is 100 call it's called 100.
8:58
But that's how like it's going to be better, right?
8:59
And there, but it's going to still have a regenerated
9:03
architecture. It's the all the brains and
9:05
processing that, you know, be is going to happen in the
9:09
satellite. And then we believe that they're
9:11
going to try to do software based fix cells and and and try
9:17
to compete at that level, right. And so there's going to be some
9:20
compromises as always with their architecture.
9:23
And because it's obviously they want to, I guess they want to
9:27
keep it backwards compatible with 30 they already have in
9:30
orbit. But to achieve 150 megabits per
9:32
second peak speed, it's going to require an entirely new
9:35
satellite, right? And it's going to that's all it
9:38
requires and doesn't have the novel unfolding mechanism has
9:43
kind of a more traditional unfurling type of solar panels.
9:48
And then the phased ray gets, I think it's within the satellite,
9:53
but then it gets pushed out and maybe it unfolds in a certain
9:55
way. But but that satellite is, is
10:00
going to need Starship to be fully functional and, you know,
10:03
on a commercial cadence to get launched.
10:05
And so it's going to take time for them to get there, right,
10:08
150 whereas the satellites where we're pushing out today,
10:11
granted, you know, it's, it's taking quite a while, but the
10:14
block 2 satellites are already going to be at this 120 megabits
10:18
per second peak speeds. But then last night we were told
10:21
expected to greatly exceed that. And so the first question you
10:25
have to ask yourself and for me, having been a former investment
10:30
banker and advice companies on MA deals and, and when you do
10:33
that, you're always and you know it also public disclosures,
10:37
whether it's earnings or other type of events, you're always
10:42
asking your general counsel and your outside legal counsel, what
10:46
is the threshold of materiality, right.
10:48
And so if I make a claim and I'm a publicly traded company, what
10:54
is the threshold of what is material?
10:57
What's not material? You know, do you say greatly,
11:01
you know, materially significant, all these different
11:04
type of adjectives where if you go to a, you know, a legal
11:11
advisor, scat in arms, you pick any number of these, you know,
11:15
corporate attorneys, you would ask them, you know, what, what's
11:18
what's permissible? Like what, what's going to, what
11:20
can we say that's not going to get us into trouble, right?
11:23
And, and maybe, you know, for us to not get sued.
11:26
And so when going back through what was disclosed last night, I
11:31
kind of went through the exercise of what I used to do as
11:33
a banker. It's like, OK, what does
11:35
greatly, what threshold legal level would would a internal
11:40
general corporate counsel be comfortable with you saying
11:43
greatly exceeds 120 megabits per second, right?
11:47
And so just to give you some idea of levels, right, like
11:50
let's say the service, what could get to 140 megabits per
11:56
second like that would give you. So that's like 20% higher than
11:59
120 that would meet the materiality threshold.
12:03
But is it would be very thin. It would be moderate, like
12:05
you're still opening yourself up for legal, you know,
12:09
implications because you're saying greatly exceeds and then
12:12
and then 100 and 4400, call it 150.
12:16
That really is like moderately exceeds.
12:18
It doesn't really meet the threshold.
12:22
And so I think if you were an attorney that was kind of fast
12:25
and loose, so you you might say, OK, well, yeah, you can go out
12:28
with those words. But if you were a, a good
12:33
practicing attorney, you would say, no, that doesn't you, you
12:35
can't go out and say greatly exceeds if, if it's only 140
12:39
where you start getting into the realm of comfort where you could
12:42
say, OK, yeah, that, that greatly exceeds.
12:45
I think 180 would be defensible. Like, you know, 50% higher than
12:49
120 would be greatly. That would be kind of Fair and
12:54
seem like a proper characterization of technical
12:58
superiority. And so that could fit.
13:00
But then I think we're, and then if you, if you're a really
13:05
conservative attorney, you might say, OK, if you, if you're going
13:08
to say greatly exceeds, then then you have to prove to me or
13:12
you have to be all comfortable or the road map has to show or
13:15
the satellites currently do this, that they can get to call
13:19
it north of 200, right? 200-222-3240.
13:24
And so that's why this disclosure last night, I think
13:26
is really important because the company is like very careful
13:31
about some of these these claims, right?
13:35
On the one hand, obviously you know, they're they're doing
13:37
their best in terms of meeting timing deadlines for launch and
13:41
production. But when it comes to these type
13:43
of claims, like I think they're very careful, right?
13:46
And so to make the claim that greatly exceeds 120, I think
13:51
you're probably looking at 180 megabits is kind of the low end
13:55
that's somewhat defensible. But to be safe, you should be
13:58
probably comfortable with the fact that the satellite can
14:01
deliver 200 two 2240, right? And so now the question is like,
14:07
is that, is that level something that an individual satellite can
14:12
deliver? Does it need like cohere
14:14
technology or are we talking about MIMO?
14:17
And so just to peel that layer back a bit there, I think it was
14:21
like in 2021-2022, there was an article where a Bell was
14:27
interviewed and someone had asked him, you know, how fast
14:30
can these things go? And, and this was obviously way
14:33
back long ago. When when the satellites were
14:36
still in in a concept, right. And so his According to him,
14:42
with MIMO, you could get to call IT7750 megabits per second peak
14:47
speeds within a cell, right, MIMO meaning you're utilizing
14:49
more than one satellite. And so it's not another one
14:53
possibility that this and an individual satellite could get
14:56
to 202 forty, depending on how much spectrum are you using.
15:00
Obviously, if you throw more spectrum at the problem, then
15:02
you can definitely get the speed tire right.
15:04
And so that that may be it, but it could be a combination of
15:07
these things. But what's interesting is that
15:11
in the Q4 update, and I remember when I heard this on the call,
15:14
I, I did a double take and I was like, what was, did I just hear
15:18
that correctly? And this is what I tweeted
15:21
today. There was a question from Leiden
15:25
to who's a retail investor and, and asks thoughtful questions.
15:30
He's he's someone that we all know quite well.
15:32
But in particular, I think, you know, the bell was answering a
15:37
question and he kind of hinted at the ability to go at higher
15:41
speeds and not necessarily be with in combination with other
15:45
satellites, but using AI. And so here, let me just read
15:49
this. So this paragraph is he says,
15:52
now we do see many other opportunities for the technology
15:56
that we are starting to see usage of them.
15:58
One is radar, another is power generation, AI data centers,
16:03
another one is multiplying the spectrum usage.
16:06
So, so that that in of itself that could hint that, you know,
16:11
use utilizing AI algorithms to use spectrum more efficiently,
16:15
but then also that it could be pointing to the company's
16:18
partnership with Cohere. So, and let me finish this.
16:22
So we believe in combination, sorry, we believe in combining
16:26
our large aperture with our AI capability.
16:29
We'll create a multiplier for the spectrum.
16:32
So the 50 megahertz we have you know it will fill a multiple of
16:36
that. It could be 3 times that, it
16:38
could be 10 times that. And so that's the first time
16:41
like I've heard that three times like that seems reasonable to me
16:46
10 times like what do you mean by that?
16:50
And and so when you look at multiplying spectrum, it's not
16:54
leveraging multiple satellites, it's just using one satellite,
16:56
but then using AI to more efficiently, I guess, reuse the
17:02
spectrum and deploy it. And so to get, you know,
17:07
capacity of three times and up to 10 times, it seems like
17:12
they're doing some pretty interesting things on the
17:14
engineering front, right? And so that's why I think, you
17:18
know, with that, with that update last night of the greatly
17:24
exceeds 120 megabits per second. And then you, you kind of tie
17:27
that, tie that back to what was said in the Q4 call, which I
17:32
think all of us were surprised. Like we, we heard that and we're
17:35
like, OK, what do you mean by that?
17:37
I think there's this road map, there's a plan for the, you know
17:43
what, what has been generally for the last several years kind
17:46
of the minimum threshold of 120 megahits per second peak speeds.
17:50
Now the company is looking to extend well beyond that.
17:52
And from a competitive perspective, let's just say, you
17:57
know, the current satellites, they can do 120, There's
17:59
probably going to be perhaps a multiple of that.
18:03
And then of course, you're going to have Block 3 satellites in
18:07
Block 4 and Block 5. So there's going to be multiple
18:09
iterations, whereas Starlink is now, you know, they're
18:12
delivering just for comparison, their, their current satellites
18:16
that are out there direct to sell there.
18:18
They can do what, 7 megabits per second per cell.
18:20
And then, you know, a bell saying we can do with our
18:23
current satellites 120 or perhaps more, right?
18:27
Perhaps three times that, perhaps 10 times that 10 times.
18:30
I'm not sure what you're referring to, but, but, but he
18:33
say he said it. So they're, they're thinking
18:35
about it. There's some type of development
18:37
going on and it's in the in the realm of possibility.
18:40
And so then you move on to block 3 satellites, which use, which
18:45
are going to be, you know, starting production at the end
18:47
of this year. And they're going to be
18:49
leveraging mid band spectrum, which for those that don't know,
18:53
mid band spectrum is, you know, 2 gigahertz around there.
18:56
It's what essentially what Starlink uses today.
18:59
So it, it doesn't have good coverage or propagation, but it
19:03
can carry a lot of data. And so that satellite, once that
19:08
gets deployed, you know what, where do we end up with peak
19:12
speeds, right? Like, if you're imagine like
19:14
your phone, if you can do a carrier aggregation and you,
19:16
you're talking to a low band Bluebird and a mid band
19:18
Bluebird, what throughput could you achieve with that, right.
19:23
Because the, the mid band Bluebirds are going to have much
19:25
higher data throughput just given the spectrum that they're
19:28
using. And so, yeah, it's, I don't
19:34
know, it's, I'm kind of dumbstruck, right?
19:36
Like the, the, the potential service levels at that we might
19:42
achieve with subscribers, whether that's consumers or
19:45
government or military is probably in I think the company
19:51
is, is kept this stuff on the wraps, right?
19:53
Like they're not, they're, they're pretty secretive.
19:56
And I think that's, that's to the frustration of a lot of new
19:59
investors. But for people who've been
20:01
around for a long time, it's kind of par for the course.
20:04
Like they don't. They don't.
20:07
They don't pound the table and give away all the cards, right,
20:10
Like they only give what they need to and the weather that
20:13
satellite design or parameters like if you talk, even, you
20:17
know, private conversations with management, like they they don't
20:19
they don't tell you a ton when it comes to your specs or, or
20:24
what they're doing behind the scenes.
20:26
But, but now we're starting to see some hints of that because I
20:29
think, I think obviously the company is now at this point of
20:33
approaching commercialization. And so some of these competitive
20:36
things like they're going to be pretty well known like because
20:39
the service is going to be up and running.
20:40
And so I, I feel like maybe the company at this point is more
20:43
comfortable in disclosing these things.
20:45
But, but I feel like this, you know, we're at this point where
20:52
maybe our expectations aren't high enough, right, in terms of
20:56
what the service is actually going to be.
20:58
And you know, the company, if you see Scott at investor
21:01
conferences or Urbell talking, they're, they, they speak very,
21:05
they're very confident from a competitive perspective and the
21:08
service that they're going to provide.
21:10
And obviously the M&O partners, they keep putting money into
21:13
this. And so, and they obviously know
21:18
the, the road map and I've seen it.
21:20
There was a hint of this, I think in 2024 when Light Shed
21:24
partners had hosted one of the decision makers at Verizon and
21:28
asked why'd you guys pick AC space mobile over, you know,
21:32
over Starlink and, and they said, well, we looked, we
21:36
evaluated both companies, Rd. maps and we just viewed AST as
21:39
much, much more attractive. And so I think now is public
21:44
investors were starting to see that, right?
21:45
Like the company is now they're coming out and they're dropping
21:50
the hints, right? So three times to 10 times of
21:54
what they had originally disclosed.
21:57
And then you've got the sweet overnight greatly exceeding 120,
22:01
right? And so again, going back to the
22:04
master class, you know, example it, what if AST is like a yeah,
22:09
A120120120 and then Starlink's like, OK, engineers, we're going
22:13
to focus on beating that. We're going to be 30 megabits
22:15
per second better. And then when the constellation
22:18
is up, AST is like surprise bitches, it's actually 200 or
22:23
240 or 250 or whatever it is, right?
22:25
That would be hilarious. That would be absolutely
22:28
hilarious. And and the market would be in
22:32
complete shock, right? As as would I perhaps not us,
22:36
right, because we're kind of heard out of the curve on this
22:39
stuff. But but yeah, that would be a
22:42
competitive master class of, you know, for your fast following
22:47
competitor, you basically give them the wrong bread crumbs,
22:51
right? You say this is what we're we're
22:53
we're engineering towards. And then at the last minute
22:56
you're like surprise, actually, it was much higher.
22:59
And so you you've spent all this time and energy, you know, for
23:02
example, Starlink is, is they're working on their ASIC right now.
23:07
And you know, maybe that will take, I don't know, another two
23:11
years, three years. But what if I think someone at
23:16
Max 33 is said that Sterling had been working on developing this
23:20
ASIC for the last year or two. And So what if they were kind of
23:24
focused on developing that ASIC with a specific performance
23:29
threshold in mind and it ended up being well behind what they
23:33
have to go deliver versus competition like that would just
23:37
be hilarious. So but yeah, that's that's kind
23:41
of the what I wanted to discuss. I mean, obviously there's, I
23:45
tweeted yesterday as we continue to wait, there's, there's, we've
23:49
got this launch coming up. I, I'm, I, I do want to say
23:53
unfortunately, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make the
23:54
launch like if it's at the end of this month, we've got spring
23:58
break plans And so I might have to watch it online, which is OK
24:02
because I think I've, I resigned myself to the fact that there's
24:06
going to be a lot more Falcon 9 and blue Blue origin launches.
24:10
It won't be as cool as the first ever Blue Origin launch, but but
24:14
yeah, depending on when the, the date of launch gets set, which I
24:18
expect it will get set pretty soon.
24:21
I may or not may or may not be able to make it.
24:24
But aside from that, you know, I did point out like we've got the
24:28
FCC application kind of being mulled over at and, and U.S.
24:33
market application could be granted any day now.
24:37
And then we've got some speculation.
24:39
You know, we we talked about the, the company kind of made it
24:44
seem like instead of a batch of three or two batches of three,
24:47
we're going to get one batch of 6 delivered in April.
24:50
And So what does that mean? Well, that could be a batch of 6
24:54
getting split up into two for Falcon 9 or then the latest
24:58
there that we have is that either New Glenn 4, which got a
25:02
special temporary authority yesterday to launch either four
25:07
or five is going to take up a batch of 6 sometime in May.
25:11
And so for those that don't know, Blue Origin filed for an
25:15
STA special temporary authorization for Blue Origin,
25:21
New Glen 4-5 and six. And so yesterday four got
25:26
approved. I'm assuming that five and six
25:28
will get approved this or next week.
25:31
And based off our due diligence, I don't think they have enough
25:34
payloads to fill all three of those.
25:36
And so it's likely that one of those, at a minimum, perhaps 2
25:40
will be for AST Space Mobile. And as we know, Scott
25:43
reiterated, 45 satellites launched at a minimum this year.
25:47
And so in order to achieve that, it's either going to be a lot of
25:51
Falcon Nines or, you know, many Falcon Nines, but then also a
25:56
few new, new Glens sprinkled in there delivering 6 satellites.
26:01
And so exciting times. I know obviously everyone's
26:04
concerned about, you know, the current conflict in Iran and the
26:08
market day-to-day trades on tweets from administration
26:13
officials or what Trump is saying or what is Iran saying.
26:17
But it's important to in these type of environments to know
26:20
what you own and understand the risks, right?
26:23
And so I think for those who have followed the space sector
26:27
and for HD Space Mobile in particular, you've got massive
26:31
tailwinds, right? Because with conflict comes more
26:33
defense spending. And obviously it's not just I
26:37
ran as an adversary, but you know, unfortunately there's
26:39
China, there's, there's Russia and space leadership and
26:44
sovereignty. You know, there's a saying he
26:46
who, who controls the sea, controls the world.
26:49
And you know, I, I have this investment in Kraken, which is,
26:53
which is a play on that. But then I was thinking this
26:55
morning, like there should be a, an exact mirroring of that
26:59
statement of he who controls space controls the world, which
27:02
is absolutely true. Like if you look at this current
27:05
conflict, the US by having observation, intelligence,
27:12
communications, GPS, all these different, you know,
27:17
capabilities in space, it it allows the US and allies to
27:22
control that theater, right? Like bringing to bear munitions
27:27
that are laser guided or you know, that that depend on space
27:31
guidance. You know, you've got fighters,
27:35
bombers, all kinds of things, right, ships, you know,
27:40
vehicles. And so I think what this
27:45
conflict has kind of shown is the fact that you need to have
27:49
absolute space dominance and be able to leverage the
27:53
technologies because it becomes as, as Pete Headset has said,
27:59
we're not going into these these fights looking for a fair fight.
28:03
We want to have an overwhelming advantage, right?
28:06
And so in order to achieve and maintain that advantage, it's
28:11
going to require ongoing and continuous development of space
28:15
assets, right? And so ACS in the Nexus of that,
28:18
as are some of these other companies as well.
28:21
So, yeah, there's going to be machinations like noise of the
28:26
market up and down. But one thing is absolutely true
28:29
and undeniable. It's the inexorable rise in
28:34
spending from defense for space, right?
28:37
And so putting aside commercial applications, we want to have
28:42
military superiority in space. And as part of that money is
28:45
going towards these companies, whether it's AST, Rocket Lab,
28:51
you know, Carmen, any number of these, you know, companies that
28:56
are focused on, you know, Planet Labs, for example, Black Sky,
29:00
all this stuff is what gives us edge, right?
29:02
And so in an environment where the markets are uncertained,
29:06
what you can be certain of it is defense spending and and money
29:10
going to these companies in order to keep US at the
29:12
forefront. So I'll end it with that.
29:15
But yeah, I, I think what an interesting disclosure from the
29:20
Q4 earnings call and then tying that together with, with the
29:25
tweet last night, I think there's great things ahead, you
29:31
know, Great Expectations here, the need for speed, right?
29:34
And so while Starling continues to catch up and they're they're
29:39
aiming low, we're aiming pretty damn fucking high.
29:42
I'll end it there. Thanks.
29:45
Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile Podcast.
29:48
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29:57
To catch all the. Latest news about AST Space
30:00
Mobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
30:03
next time. We're doing something very, very
30:09
big and I think with this technology we can really affect
30:12
billion lives. AFT Space Mobile is the only
30:15
company that has proven technology to deliver several
30:19
mobile connectivity. Directly from the state to the.
30:22
Everyday smartphone people will just basically turn their phone
30:27
can be seamless, regardless of where you are.
30:29
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
30:31
satellite. Our role is to bring this into
30:35
reality, always in partnership with the MMO Listen.
30:51
Waffles.