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Space Stocks Weekly - AST SpaceMobile · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

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  Original audio sourced from the X Space.
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  Space Stocks Weekly, hosted by at Jacob Keaton, 20.
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  Follow him on X for live weekly updates on the space industry.
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  This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
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  Just basically from your phone, be seamless regardless of where
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  you are. We don't want the user even to
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  know that it's connected by satellite by.
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  Satellite, listen the opportunity.
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  That we have is very, very, very large.
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  SMS isn't going to make it tonight, but do you want to just
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  so I don't hold you into an hour long Rock Lab discussion?
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  Do you want to cover ACS stuff 1st?
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  And then if you want and then we can discuss that for a little
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  bit. And I think Rock Lab, it's gonna
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  take longer. There's a few more announcements
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  in the last week. Yeah, no kidding.
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  Yeah. I mean, I think you're right.
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  I mean, it's hard for me to know how algos work and, and what
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  hedge funds and institutional investors are doing.
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  But you know, we had those two big days kind of riding on
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  rocket labs coattails on Friday and Monday.
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  And I, I, I suppose maybe there was an expectation for a
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  specific shipping date to be given for the first batch set of
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  satellites. They didn't give a specific
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  date, but they're still guiding for a mid June launch on a
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  Falcon nine with SpaceX. So presumably SpaceX would want
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  20 to 30 days to integrate, I would assume maybe on the longer
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  end of that, given that this is the first time with these larger
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  satellites. So if we're targeting mid June,
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  I would expect the shipment to happen in the next week, week
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  and a half. I think that's what Ampan Man
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  had mentioned as well. So maybe they were looking for
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  that. Maybe there was some expectation
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  that we would get more color on government awards.
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  Jake, I'm not sure what you thought about this.
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  They mentioned that they had been given three additional
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  awards since March. And that language seems
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  incredibly vague to me because if it's since March 1st, that
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  might still be included in Q1. If it's since the end of March,
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  then we're talking about uniquely Q2 awards.
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  But regardless, they are still doing a lot of work with the
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  military. But we didn't get a lot of
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  specific color. We didn't get any, you know,
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  specific amounts or things like that that maybe people were
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  looking for. The one thing we did get is the
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  explicit mention of radar, which seems to have been maybe the
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  first time they were really explicit about doing radar
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  capabilities with the current satellites that are already in
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  orbit. A Bell answered one question by
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  saying, no, we don't need to start making changes to our
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  satellites in order to, you know, perform a lot of these
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  military government use cases. We've been doing that from the
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  beginning. We've been in conversation with
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  with the government for years. So that was encouraging, I
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  think. But yeah, you know, obviously
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  disappointing stock price reaction.
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  A lot of people have been saying, you know, it's, it's not
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  just going to be the shipment of Bluebirds 8 through 10, it's
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  going to be how quickly that second batch comes along
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  afterward. And so maybe that is true, maybe
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  that that's what people are waiting for.
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  Interestingly, the analysts didn't really do much today.
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  I mean, we had a couple of upgrades in terms of price
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  targets being raised and we had a couple of price targets being
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  reiterated. So it wasn't, you know, the
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  analyst didn't seem disappointed the either.
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  It seemed like most people from the analyst to space mob, I
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  suppose, suggested that the market was just kind of trading
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  too much on quarterly revenue when the company has been really
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  clear that with this company you need to focus more on the annual
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  revenue rather than the quarterly revenue.
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  Yeah, Crispy. About the 'cause I thought that
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  was the most interesting part of the call.
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  And that's one a lot of the people of the defense base kind
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  of latched onto cause I've, I've heard some like, you know, like
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  you got Mike Black Scholes, man, for any guys who don't or are
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  not familiar with him, but he's said it before in spaces that
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  the, the phase Ray can operate both ways.
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  You know it could. Be a transmitter, it could be
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  receiver. There's a lot.
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  Of military applications in the tech that I think.
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  That you guys in space mob have been like well aware.
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  Of and then speculating on for a while.
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  So I thought that was pretty good confirmation signal, but as
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  far as because I can understand how a phase ray can operate.
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  As like a tuned receiver. In terms of like picking up
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  disparate signals, but for like tracking objects and as a radar,
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  is that a function of this spectrum that they have or I'm
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  not? I don't know if we have any of
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  the tech mob in the space mob in the audience that could explain
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  to me how. These phase arrays operate.
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  On in the. Radar range I've I've
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  understood. How it could be?
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  Like a really precise like. Multi spectrum receiver
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  functionally but like the radar element of it.
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  I'm just wondering how that kind of works.
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  Yeah. I really don't see anybody in
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  here right now that's going to be the real expert in that kind
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  of engineering technical side of things, which I'm not.
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  But no, it's a great question. And and it like I said, it was
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  the first time that maybe the company actually specifically
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  talked about radar as a use case.
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  So, yeah, I mean, you're going to know a lot more than than I
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  would about what exactly is needed if it's just a matter of
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  the antennas or if you start to get into that, you know, optical
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  stuff that's going on, if that's going to be allowing for more of
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  the radar spying type use cases that are available.
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  I I think. It's more just like a function
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  of the spectrum itself, because a radar is essentially bouncing
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  back a signal and a phased array allows you to direct a signal
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  without directing a physical antenna.
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  But I'm just wondering what like spectrum assets that they might
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  have or what access to military bands that they might have in
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  order to kind of like do that dual use?
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  Yeah, I feel like now I'm starting to wonder, Jacob, I
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  don't even might remember this too.
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  I feel like when the radar was mentioned in the call, that was
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  right around the point where both Scott and the Bell said
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  this is happening now. But now I'm wondering if there
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  was the moment where they said that's going to be primarily for
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  the Block 3 mid band spectrum using satellites that will start
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  being produced at the end of this year.
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  And so that we'd have to go back and look at the look at the
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  transcript to see which, yeah, if they're using just the
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  current kind of low band spectrum or if that's something
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  that they'll be able to make use of kind of the L&S band mid band
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  spectrum for the radar use case. So otherwise.
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  Yeah, I was trying to find the video.
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  I just commented it. Check out that one.
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  It's talking about Starlink, but it's it's the same tech and
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  sense of like the the receiving portions of it are.
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  And then there's another one that I that it's more about
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  radars from space. You should check out too.
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  I'll reply to it. Yeah, I, I like that video.
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  I, I make a mistake of always like starting to dive down his
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  videos when I'm like kind of laying down and like on the cusp
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  of a nap and all videos are so dense and like if you're not
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  paying attention, you just drift away.
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  Like a like a brick. Yeah, noise, Noise in Space is
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  the YouTube channel, but yeah, no, it's very, it's very dense.
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  But I was. Not saying that as a.
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  Negative. I mean just like the the amount
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  of value that he packs into every like 10 seconds spectrum,
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  you really have to pay attention.
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  But yeah, if it is a Starlink, yeah, video, then if that's
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  where the radar really starts working, then obviously Starlink
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  is using the mid band spectrum. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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  So yeah, that would be maybe more for Block 3 Bluebirds
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  that'll start being produced at the end of this year.
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  So yeah, that's a really good question about whether the
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  current use for military uses is is with the radar or if it's
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  it's still just providing other use cases at this point.
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  Yeah, when they said because he kept saying non communication
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  use cases, right. So there I mean that that that
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  kind of screams the radar. But then there's also the data
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  transport piece too. If they get in about there, they
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  could get linked into the, well, I don't know if it'd be under
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  SDN, but like basically into the, the satellite data network.
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  They're, they're looking to bring on commercial basically.
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  So they can all of these optically linked satellites up
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  there basically will be 1 big mesh network of system
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  assistance. So, but I mean, I can see them
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  getting that kind of contract. I know that there's a ton that,
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  of money that is been approved and that needs to get spent
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  before the end of the year. So I know there's tons of more
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  like contract negotiations happening right now or just
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  across the Defense Department. And then I, I mean, I, I looked
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  afterwards through sam.co, which has all the contracting history
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  for both Fairwinds and, and ACS, but I didn't, I didn't see
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  connected there. But that that doesn't
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  necessarily mean there isn't it just it either it's not been 90
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  days for stuff that's happened recently or it or the the sub
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  the contract doesn't isn't listed there as in they weren't.
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  Yeah, I think, yeah, maybe that that's since March language.
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  I'm wondering if if Q2 is going to have a little bit more in
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  terms of specifics on some of these contracts.
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  But yeah, I think that was the part of the call that probably a
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  lot of people were, you know, pretty amped up on since since a
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  bell and then Scott really started to to use kind of the
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  radar language. The other thing that of course,
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  caught everybody's attention is that a bell, and I assume this
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  was maybe not supposed to take place, but he did name ula
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  Vulcan as presumably the other rocket that they might be
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  launching on in the future, or at least that might be the one
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  that they're on standby with. So we'd all been speculating
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  Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi Ula others Ariana.
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  But he did say that Scott didn't repeat it.
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  So it felt like maybe that wasn't something that was
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  supposed to be said out loud, But a lot of people are
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  mentioning the ula does a lot of the military, government
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  launches. So that could be another
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  possible tea leave for stuff, stuff that's going on here.
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  So that was mentioned in terms of, I don't know, other just
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  interesting things. You have the phased arrays,
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  meaning both the microns and the solar.
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  The whole thing's completed for BB8 through 28 and then the
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  microns completed up through 33. So it seems like manufacturing
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  is starting to pick up a little bit more speed.
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  But we'll see if we get 8 through 10 shipped maybe next
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  week. And then if we get 1112 and 13
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  shipped maybe 2-3 weeks after that, then I think that would
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  probably finally be a little bit of a de risking movement in
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  terms of the the manufacturing cadence problems being solved.
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  Yeah, so the yeah, I was going to, I was going to bring this up
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  at some point, but the I there was one thing that Anthea
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  didn't. Oh, by the way, who hasn't seen
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  it? I'm sure they have, but Anthea
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  ended up like a post Q1 like spaces last night.
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  So I think it was last night anyways.
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  So check that out and give it a listen to you if you wanted to
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  hear his voice. And so, but in that he was
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  talking about the different like manufacturing stuff.
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  But I I remember from the slides and I don't have in front of me,
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  sorry, but there was a there was some there was a picture when
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  they're showing building, pouring concrete saying they're
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  expanding something being as the Micron facilities going spanning
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  up to be able to do basically microns for 10 sets a month.
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  Was that second expansion point for the assembly actual like are
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  they doing the final Bluebird assemblies?
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  Do you know? Yeah, I know.
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  I don't know. Was that in Midland or Odessa?
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  I can't remember right now. I can't either.
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  I don't know where that I have so many tabs open.
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  I mean, I mean, it seems, I think you're right that this
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  Micron facility, I think they wanted to really say this is now
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  complete and now being stood up. So because we had that 3 minute
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  video released on Friday with kind of a tour of the Micron
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  facility. So I assume that their other
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  expansion is still kind of related to not that facility,
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  but the kind of original where they're actually getting
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  everything together. I know they have more and more,
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  you know, of the T vac units, the testing capabilities.
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  So I'm guessing that that's probably where the additional
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  square footage is coming online in coming months.
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  Yeah, I mean, I got yeah. And what what I what between
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  that with the videos they really showed was I it's to me, it's
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  just like, it's like this is a monster like building up.
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  It's not like, yeah, we're going to get three sets next in the,
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  you know, let's say they have the trip in the next week and
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  then and then maybe all you can go as far as a month to the next
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  three. Well, I bet you the time period
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  between that and the three after it will be less and then less
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  and then less. Like so I don't know, I guess it
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  it's just how manufacturing works like it started.
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  It's all. It's slowly and then all at
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  once. It seems like it, yeah.
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  And obviously I think it's only the the the next 5 or 6 are
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  still where the casings had to be kind of retrofitted.
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  But then the seven after that were the ones dropped off by the
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  antenna of probably 3 weeks ago. So if they really did solve some
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  of those engineering problems around stacking and making sure
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  that everything could bear the weight and the pressure of
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  launch, then yeah, I'm with you. It feels like we've reached an
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  inflection point here, but IIASTS is kind of, I think made
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  it difficult to always believe that it's really happening this
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  time and that this time is going to be the time.
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  But yeah, it does feel like this is really where we'll start
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  seeing a bit of a ramp up and then it just becomes about
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  launch. Scott didn't want to show any
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  cards of what he knew about maybe the FAA investigation into
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  Blue Origin New Glenn. But it seems like everybody's
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  talking about hearing things that this won't drag out too
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  long and that we might get an FAA authorization to start
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  launching new Glens as soon as in the next few weeks, which
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  would still allow them potentially to have, you know,
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  multiple launches for non Leo, non Amazon Leo commercial
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  partners in the back half of the year.
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  And Pan Man mentioned that they're aiming for a third first
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  stage booster to be ready by the end of summer and then a fourth
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  first stage booster to be ready by the end of the year.
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  So if you have a 30 day turn around with the two that are
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  currently available, once they are allowed to launch, you could
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  have a launch, you know, twice a month.
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  Now we could be moving up to 3-4 times a month if we get to those
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  4 boosters and if they all continue to land and get
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  refurbished successfully. Yeah, I mean, like I feel, I
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  feel you on the frustration part.
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  I yeah, the Neutron was supposed to be ready to get into 2024.
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  I mean, you guys have a similar like frustration, you know,
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  that's consolation was supposed to be blown kind of like.
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  So I get that. I've, I've held, I found at
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  least since my last time, just assuming it's going to not be
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  done until 2028 and then any surprise will be like like May
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  doesn't quite work the same for the consolation.
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  But my my thing with Neutron now is like just 2028.
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  It'll launch then and if that happens before then, great.
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  I've just given up hoping that it's going to happen sooner than
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  they say or even on time what they're saying.
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  Yeah, and I mean, for me personally listening to the
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  call, I think maybe the the the the best part for me, since I'm
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  not maybe as far into the tech as everyone else, it's just
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  listening to a bell talk about his confidence that they're
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  simply in his mind is, is they're simply not competition
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  for what they are capable of doing now.
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  And he said a couple of different times that he doesn't
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  see how that landscape is changing over the next, you
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  know, several years. So, you know, to me, I think
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  when a company says it's in a race against itself in terms of
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  full broadband direct to sell connectivity, you know, that
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  still gives me the ability to be really patient.
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  Because you're right, what if it we know, what if we don't get
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  commercial revenue happening until the second-half of 2027?
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  I mean, let's go that far out, OK.
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  So with 3 1/2 billion on the balance sheet, we can make it
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  that long. And if there has to be a little
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  bit more dilution in 2027 to over that last hurdle, so be it.
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  But if that still is a unique capability that the Starlink is
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  not going to get to quite that soon and that Amazon, Leo, we
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  have her Amazon, we don't have no idea really what their plans
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  are in terms of their design, then yeah, I think that still
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  allows some patience for those who have the ability to be
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  patient. But you're right, it's not
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  always easy. And, and on that too, like there
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  is there's an article today or something from saying that the
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  FCC approved Starlink's basically ability to be its own
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  mobile network operator, right I.
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  Was about to ask you all about that 65 megahertz of spectrum.
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  Is that new, or is that just the same Echostar deal just getting
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  closed? I think this was new because
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  what I saw is that some of that was also then going to AT&T
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  including an additional, oh gosh, what was it 30 megahertz
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  of low band spectrum in the 600 range that Asts would presumably
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  be able to use. So I I think that this was an an
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  additional Echostar sale if I'm right about it.
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  Yeah. So yes, it was, it was the
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  Echostar. Wait, that's what I remember
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  reading when I read too, was that the Echostar deal, this is
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  the the spectrum for an AT&T had bought part of this spectrum
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  from Echostar before they sold anything else to Starlink.
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  This is the same spectrum. I think AT&T poppies of it and
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  Starlink did and this is separate from their other stuff.
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  This is a little bad. I I I think, but anyway, but
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  yes, so they they got more spectrum.
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  But all what I was trying to get out with it was saying like if
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  the next closest New York pure competitors star like and then
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  they're moving to the base, the ability to fleece these M and OS
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  cut them out. Like I there's there's even less
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  pressure on the on the commercial side from that sense.
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  It's like they're not they're not waiting to jump ship to jump
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  to another provider because the next closest one, even if even
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  if their tech is way far behind, is not, you know, is an enemy at
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  this point. Like it like they're going to
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  eat their future business kind of thing.
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  So I I it makes I would guess it makes more secure.
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  In my mind. And it's, and just one of the
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  thing that was on the the call is they're, they're up to now
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  again, these aren't DAS, they're not definitive agreements, but
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  just with the MO US, you're up to 60 plus MNO partners around
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  the world, 3.2 billion subscribers.
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  So again, not, you know, most of those have not entered into
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  definitive agreements, but those numbers just keep climbing.
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  And some were, you know, crunching the numbers,
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  especially in a place like Africa, saying with the
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  partnerships that seem to be in place, ASTS already is around
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  that 50% and could easily get to that 60%, you know, control of
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  the subscribers in that entire continent.
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  So yeah, I think you know, the the commercial model of
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  wholesaling to wholesaling to them and OS and just the fact
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  that those partnerships are there, the ability to use low
• 19:17
  band spectrum, which allows for that stronger connection.
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  You know those things still are in in ASTSS favor as long as
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  they can really get going here with the launches.
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  Yeah, last thing on that and then we'll let you go.
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  I was just going to say the if they are, if their cadence picks
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  up and stuff like that, like the, the, the point when they
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  get to that 245 or whatnot or whatever the end of state of the
• 19:42
  constellation is called. They said like 60 was the goal
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  to get to be continuous service. But let's just call like 120 or
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  something like that. That end point, that end date
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  may not have shifted to the right because stuff at the
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  beginning to like like by the time they're at full cadence,
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  like, you know, running these set like launching constantly
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  and stuff like that. This one.
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  One sat like the failed before or one launch removed by a few
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  weeks isn't. Exactly, Yeah.
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  And I think it's kind of the the 45 to 60 for the key markets and
• 20:09
  then 90 for kind of the global coverage.
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  But you're right, they still have that 243 number out there
• 20:14
  just to presumably just saturate everything.
• 20:17
  And I noticed that you commented on this that people were talking
• 20:20
  about yesterday and today that in the 10Q, they talked about
• 20:23
  very successfully demonstrating the ability to hand off between
• 20:26
  satellites without causing the phone to have to go searching
• 20:30
  any sort of battery drain or anything like that, which seems
• 20:34
  like you had said to be a really big deal, especially when
• 20:37
  compared to what Starlink direct to cell is doing now.
• 20:42
  Yeah, I'll call it out in a second.
• 20:44
  Be sorry. Get your hand up for a while.
• 20:45
  Go ahead. But hi.
• 20:50
  Hey guys. I just wanted to comment on on
• 20:53
  the radar piece. I know Mike has been tracking
• 20:56
  the, the radar capabilities of ASTS for a while, but there's
• 21:02
  also a new company that just iPod last week, Hawkeye and the
• 21:06
  ticker is actually HAWK. I think it's around a 3 billion
• 21:10
  market cap. And they specifically all
• 21:13
  they're doing is, is RF sensing. It's actually called remote
• 21:18
  sensing, not like the, the, you know, psych psychic abilities,
• 21:22
  but it's the, I think the legal term in, in space industry is
• 21:25
  remote sensing and it doesn't, it doesn't require the use of
• 21:31
  spectrum. Essentially these these
• 21:33
  companies that are doing this are eavesdropping or listening
• 21:38
  to activity across all other people's spectrum.
• 21:44
  And then you have a question of like the legality around it.
• 21:47
  And I think a decent analogy is, is kind of like the difference
• 21:51
  between tracking metadata and then tracking like the content
• 21:55
  of, of emails or phone calls where the metadata is seems to
• 22:00
  be legal. But then to actually like open
• 22:02
  that up and then look at the, the contents of the packet would
• 22:06
  cross once. So Hawkeye is doing this.
• 22:09
  They, they're, they've launched microsatellites and they're
• 22:12
  flying them in a, in a formation and then they're doing it
• 22:16
  through triangulation. And the majority of their
• 22:19
  revenue is, is definitely U.S. government and then other
• 22:22
  governments around the world. And they're also, the primes are
• 22:26
  also using them like Lockheed and, and Raytheon to integrate
• 22:30
  the RF data down into their, their, their, you know,
• 22:34
  platforms. ASTS is, is doing this with the
• 22:38
  phased array. Essentially.
• 22:40
  It's so big, it's like a bucket that, that captures all the RF
• 22:44
  signals across other people's spectrums.
• 22:47
  So they're not actually like using the spectrum itself.
• 22:51
  They're they're listening across.
• 22:53
  And then I guess that they can then use their, the spectrum
• 22:56
  they do have for downlinks to send whatever kind of
• 22:59
  information that they find. I don't know if that's helpful
• 23:03
  or not, but that's where I'm at. And I'm, I think Hawkeye is, is
• 23:06
  pretty interesting. I just don't know how big their
• 23:08
  their their Tam is so to speak, but it might be worth checking
• 23:13
  that company out. Yeah, I, I, I posted another
• 23:17
  video that they did with payload or whatever they call themselves
• 23:20
  RK and the idiom now, but that was what the CEO, they did about
• 23:24
  3 or 4 months ago on Hawkeye 360.
• 23:26
  It was one of the first like interviews I'd seen from them
• 23:29
  and gave me more of an idea of what their company does.
• 23:31
  But they go into some decent amount of detail on what the
• 23:33
  tech is. And yeah, signals intelligence
• 23:36
  or remote sensing, what you're saying, it's precisely that.
• 23:39
  And good point. Another one like that's another
• 23:42
  like like on the face or like it's non communication based
• 23:47
  technology that ASCs might be using too.
• 23:49
  It's it's just pulling in the data streams.
• 23:51
  And then I mean, if it's sitting there, it's just like a big
• 23:54
  receiver, even if it's bouncing that signal back to somewhere
• 23:58
  else to be analyzed, like it should still take in all of
• 24:00
  those those data points, I assume.
• 24:02
  In the in that. Interview The Hawkeye 360.
• 24:04
  CEO kind of like explained it that they don't have the
• 24:06
  sensitivity in tuning to be able to pick up individual cell phone
• 24:10
  like antenna signals, but they would be able to pick up like
• 24:13
  radial comms or like just like, just different like point to
• 24:16
  point, like ship comms and like a higher order of like of power
• 24:22
  in the transmission lines that they'll be able to detect and
• 24:24
  triangulate and locate. And he, he went into detail
• 24:28
  about like the different use cases of when like fishing
• 24:30
  vessels will turn off their transponders or in this current
• 24:32
  context, when somebody's transiting the Hormuz.
• 24:35
  And like they might switch off their transponders, but they
• 24:38
  might have just like, you know, your standard walkie-talkie
• 24:41
  level radios that have a stronger antenna than like a
• 24:45
  like a cell phone that might need like quicker, higher
• 24:48
  frequency connection to a tower or to like a 5G device and
• 24:52
  doesn't have as long. Because the, the way that I
• 24:55
  always thought of it is like the length and the size of the
• 24:57
  antenna dictates the sensitivity or like the power in which it
• 25:01
  can like produce a band. So they'll wheels like detect
• 25:04
  things that might not be transponder level, but probably
• 25:07
  not down to cell phone level. Yeah, they he specifically said
• 25:12
  less about a Watt of power. Anything that's less than a
• 25:15
  Watt, he doesn't it doesn't pick up, but the signal levels less
• 25:17
  than a Watt, which is which is cell phones, which is
• 25:20
  interesting because that's a whole area of the of the tech
• 25:24
  spectrum that that some interest that some defense companies or
• 25:28
  defense industries. What am I trying to say?
• 25:30
  The Department of Defense war, whatever it would be very
• 25:34
  interested in probably having that tight capability to see all
• 25:36
  the sense down at those lower power levels that because of the
• 25:39
  size of Hawkeye satellites, they won't be able to pick up.
• 25:42
  So they already have. And I I would volunteer.
• 25:45
  In the 5G antennas themselves. Yeah.
• 25:48
  Well, OK, that yeah, domestically we don't have a 5G
• 25:50
  antenna everywhere on the planet.
• 25:52
  That's the whole thing that's otherwise we didn't have ASCs
• 25:54
  company. So like I was just getting it
• 25:56
  like they, they if it's data collection that sends or signals
• 26:00
  intelligence, whatever, that that would be another huge area
• 26:03
  that that you know then and they might not be the prime for it.
• 26:06
  And that's another, that's another spot that there's money
• 26:09
  in the budget for as well as trying to get that.
• 26:10
  All right, next person. Probably should mention that in
• 26:14
  the video that we saw and they did confirm this on the call
• 26:17
  that the ASIC chip is now kind of in production and we saw even
• 26:23
  a testing area where one of them was one of the testing units was
• 26:26
  marked ASIC. So presumably they're testing
• 26:29
  the FPGA chips in a bunch of these areas.
• 26:32
  But then the ASICS evidently are are going.
• 26:35
  And then if you if anybody didn't see it and you're
• 26:37
  interested, ASTS also posted a video, I think this one was
• 26:42
  Monday actually, where they had some people out on a boat near
• 26:46
  the Bahamas and it showed them hitting that 98.9.
• 26:50
  I think it was megabits per second.
• 26:52
  And a bell said that that was with well, the, the, the post
• 26:56
  said it was with block 1 satellite, so the slightly
• 26:58
  smaller version and said that they're expecting to nearly
• 27:01
  double those speeds with the block 2 satellites.
• 27:05
  So at the previous launch event he had, he had mentioned 1:50
• 27:09
  earlier, they had just said greatly exceed 120.
• 27:13
  So the number just kind of keeps getting a little bit higher.
• 27:15
  Now we're nearly doubling 98.9. And he did clarify that that
• 27:21
  speed is the same whether you're talking about the FPGA or the
• 27:23
  ASICS. The ASICS are just allowing, you
• 27:26
  know, more simultaneous users and just optimizing the
• 27:31
  bandwidth coming through. But the speeds are already going
• 27:34
  to be there with the FPGA chips that are on at least probably
• 27:38
  the first, I mean, who knows. But first let's say 10 or 15 or
• 27:41
  20 of these Block 2 satellites. So that was interesting
• 27:45
  information for us as well. The only, I think the last thing
• 27:48
  maybe worth mentioning just for anybody who's thinking about
• 27:50
  possibly investing is that we did get a little bit more
• 27:53
  specificity on dilution. On the last call they had said
• 27:57
  they don't have any, didn't have any plans for the near or medium
• 28:00
  term for more offerings or or converts here.
• 28:04
  They specifically said there are no plans for the remainder of
• 28:07
  2026 for any convertible offerings or anything like that.
• 28:13
  Yeah, I caught that too. The wait before I jump off from
• 28:17
  the tech conversation, the, the ASIC ASIC versus FPGA is the
• 28:24
  ASIC more efficient? So it takes less power to do the
• 28:26
  same thing. And, and so I mean, if you're,
• 28:29
  if you're power constrained on, you know, maybe it doesn't
• 28:32
  matter for one, one single chip or one Micron, but across the
• 28:35
  whole satellite like you, you're the power drain will be
• 28:38
  different. And then obviously that allows
• 28:40
  them to they can operate more efficiently as in operate the
• 28:44
  chips faster and less power. They can use more Simon saneous
• 28:47
  beams or more capacity where I don't know, magic happens after
• 28:51
  that. I'll get Catsy to explain of the
• 28:53
  electrical Jerry crap because I always.
• 28:55
  Confused and and giving that I'm not an engineer, I always like
• 28:59
  good analogies. I think this was Ampan man's
• 29:01
  that the FPGA you can think of as a Swiss Army knife and the
• 29:05
  ASIC you can think of as a Japanese chef knife.
• 29:09
  So the idea is the FPGA can do a lot of different things and can
• 29:12
  do them well. And that's why probably they're
• 29:14
  going to be still needed for especially the government
• 29:16
  military use cases. Whereas the ASICS are incredibly
• 29:20
  specialized and like you said, therefore have a level of
• 29:23
  efficiency that allows for a lot more activity within the various
• 29:28
  beams. And this probably might not be
• 29:33
  the best analogy, but just on a nerdier label, a field field
• 29:36
  programmable gate array is like graph paper.
• 29:38
  You can like draw on it, whatever.
• 29:40
  You need it to be. But when you actually put it
• 29:42
  into production, you put it into the ASIC, you actually bake the
• 29:45
  design into an actual like a CAD file or like you know what I
• 29:48
  mean? Because.
• 29:50
  The graph paper you could set up.
• 29:52
  Whatever you want. You can design whatever you want
• 29:54
  on graph paper, but when you actually produce the part you
• 29:57
  need to have it actually be like a CAD drawing.
• 29:59
  Just like specify because the the Swiss army knife makes
• 30:02
  perfect sense. But it's really.
• 30:04
  A bunch of circuits so you can set up like a breadboard if
• 30:07
  anybody's ever played with those.
• 30:09
  But then when you ask what you're designed, you put it on a
• 30:11
  PCB. You actually bake it into the
• 30:13
  chip itself, rather than having all that optionality that you
• 30:15
  have overhead on. Cool that.
• 30:18
  Yeah, I appreciate that. I love those analogies.
• 30:20
  And you know, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but it
• 30:22
  sounds like most people say it takes years to create your own
• 30:26
  new ASIC. And the fact that that would be
• 30:29
  another competitive advantage for anybody else getting into
• 30:33
  the space that they're it, it takes years to create that kind
• 30:37
  of a specialized chip for at least the commercial
• 30:40
  communication use. Sweet and so like said, I was
• 30:46
  going this earlier yeah the the there was a comment in the 10K
• 30:50
  about them basically being able to have a have a call swap, swap
• 30:54
  the call without dropping it from one sat to the next as it's
• 30:57
  passing over. That's huge That's that's
• 31:01
  basically like what Starling direct Cell's biggest failure is
• 31:05
  right now because they can't do hand offs quickly enough.
• 31:08
  And so Adam Ballot had that CNAP validated and field testing is
• 31:11
  really, really important because it's like that's, I mean,
• 31:14
  that'll make or break the service if you're, if you can't
• 31:17
  maintain a call for more than, you know, the 5 minutes or 10
• 31:19
  minutes or whatever, how long he's passing.
• 31:21
  So that's huge. And I was, I had just made a
• 31:23
  comparison to that. Even with the, the Starlink mini
• 31:26
  roam thing, the actual dish, it still had issues with Wi-Fi
• 31:29
  calls. If I didn't have like 180° like
• 31:33
  perfect view of the sky, if like wasn't on the planes or
• 31:35
  something like that, it would, it would, it would have issues
• 31:38
  in on hand off. So even with, like, the big
• 31:40
  giant dish, it's. It seems to be.
• 31:43
  Yeah. It was just cool to see that.
• 31:44
  All right, let's move on to Rocket Lab.
• 31:49
  Maybe. But Mike wants to jump up, so
• 31:51
  I'll let him talk first. But yeah, I think it's not dark
• 31:56
  yet. I think we'll jump to Rocket
• 31:57
  Lab, But feel free to hang out as long as you want, Mike.
• 32:03
  Yeah, I I do so just real quickly on the Asus chipset, so
• 32:07
  there's a company in London, there's a publicly traded option
• 32:09
  that it's called Enfi. It's Enfi dot LFD.
• 32:13
  There is an American OTC for it. They have direct.
• 32:17
  So they are the ones that designed AST space bubbles, APS
• 32:22
  chipset and they actually get a royalty on each one of those
• 32:26
  satellites once they go up with that ship set on it.
• 32:28
  But I just want to make you guys aware of that.
• 32:33
  Good to know man. Thank you.
• 32:35
  I don't trade international, but if anyone wants to, he might
• 32:38
  drop that dropped in the comments.
• 32:39
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 32:39
  Well, I'll try. To find the Oticiana, but it's
• 32:41
  somewhere. But yeah, I just real quickly.
• 32:43
  Another thing too, I've been following with the company.
• 32:45
  It's spaceable for a very long time.
• 32:47
  I was very shocked on the earnings call that they
• 32:51
  basically dropped, they were doing missile tracking.
• 32:53
  I mean, that's, that's what you're saying with the radar
• 32:55
  system that they're, that they built into the blue.
• 32:57
  The Bluebirds was missile track. I was, I was very shocked to
• 33:00
  hear them be so openly about it and the fact that it was
• 33:03
  designed into the birds. I, I, I thought that was amazing
• 33:07
  news this week that that was the big take away for me on
• 33:09
  earnings. Did you actually hear him or did
• 33:11
  he actually say missile tracking?
• 33:14
  'Cause I Yeah, You read the clean the golden Dome.
• 33:18
  Yeah, Golden Dome. Read the tea.
• 33:21
  Tea. Read the tea.
• 33:21
  Leaves. Read the tea leaves.
• 33:23
  It is basically a missile tracking system that using, you
• 33:28
  know, whatever, you know, voodoo they put on to the Bluebirds for
• 33:31
  tracking it. But I on a more comical note,
• 33:36
  are you just just thinking about it out loud?
• 33:37
  I mean, I, I was like, OK, so basically they've hijacked the
• 33:42
  narrative of a commercial connect everybody to cell phones
• 33:46
  narrative to yeah, but we're also building, you know, you
• 33:49
  know, missile tracking capabilities and these things
• 33:51
  too. I, I, it always makes me wonder
• 33:53
  was, was really the government really the back end funding of
• 33:57
  all this from the very beginning?
• 33:59
  I know, I know, tinfoil hat type stuff.
• 34:02
  That, that was similar to Rocket Lab though, too, right?
• 34:04
  Like they, they were had partnership with Lockheed very
• 34:08
  early on. And then when he came up and
• 34:10
  branded themselves as, as a commercial entity.
• 34:14
  And now it's only with the recent like, like, you know,
• 34:17
  geopolitical shift where, where there's more of an, I guess an
• 34:20
  acceptance of where things are out with defence that they're,
• 34:23
  they're very open about their role in the defence sector now
• 34:26
  and pursuing it actively. So I was kind of felt that was
• 34:29
  like a similar path with the Asts.
• 34:33
  I'll find a demo. In 2016 as well.
• 34:36
  Rocket. Not specifically.
• 34:39
  Yeah, yeah. No, no, B, but very well, nice
• 34:41
  to talk to you again. And but you know, I agree.
• 34:43
  I mean it was it was very interesting.
• 34:46
  So hearing that news actually come out today or the last time
• 34:49
  I should say. And it just kind of reminded me
• 34:51
  like, so you know, all these analysts of Wall Street are
• 34:53
  talking about space mobile as if you know, how many Subs sign up
• 34:56
  to service this, that and that or, but at the end of the day,
• 34:59
  you have an underlying floor on the price because the DoD is
• 35:04
  going to rely upon this with a signal intelligence and B
• 35:07
  missile tracking. It, it, it, it just really
• 35:09
  gives. It gives a whole new narrative
• 35:11
  to the company that I don't think a lot of Wall Street
• 35:13
  analysts were modeling before. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean,
• 35:18
  we've known about well, maybe not we, but the the I I know
• 35:22
  that I know the Radar P specifically has come up for a
• 35:24
  while now. There's a lot of speculation
• 35:26
  around it, but I, I don't know, I guess I'm, I've been trying to
• 35:30
  follow that too really closely. But man, there's just nothing
• 35:33
  released about who the nine companies or seven or nine
• 35:35
  companies are that that won awards for AMTI program.
• 35:39
  But I mean, that's not the only radar.
• 35:41
  There's there's wide fields and there's also GMTI as well.
• 35:44
  I thought they were maybe the missile warning was for Mio.
• 35:47
  But I mean, yeah, there's, there's several layers to this
• 35:50
  and then there's several, there's, there's multiple primes
• 35:54
  within each like initiative. So I have no idea where and
• 35:58
  maybe they're on multiple, maybe they're on several Subs for the
• 36:01
  same type of thing. Maybe it's all or maybe several
• 36:03
  of them are two with the radar, but they're they're the sub
• 36:06
  they're subbing out to like, you know, one or two out of primes
• 36:08
  or something like that for the tech or demonstrations.
• 36:10
  It's hard to tell. It's hard to tell.
• 36:11
  But yes, I agree that there's there's absolutely defense
• 36:15
  applications for this. It's definitely dual use and and
• 36:18
  they're going to get something. I just, I, I don't, I don't see
• 36:20
  that the like the plan a long thing.
• 36:23
  I think that they had no idea where the defense budget
• 36:26
  spending was going, you know, four years ago to even have an
• 36:29
  idea of, of this whole thing like the golden Dome wasn't a
• 36:32
  topic four years ago. So I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't
• 36:34
  necessarily say that. I think they, they saw, saw the
• 36:36
  landscape. You know, they, they're, they're
• 36:38
  moving to where the money is and, and that this kind of like
• 36:41
  funding ramp kind of thing has happened pretty rapidly.
• 36:44
  So I think several companies have had to, you know, make a
• 36:47
  basically like, you know, it's they're, they're called an
• 36:49
  audible. They're they're all moving to,
• 36:51
  to get some of this bang for your buck because it's, it's
• 36:54
  just so lucrative and they're all the experts that, you know,
• 36:57
  they're the the top in the industries for this.
• 37:00
  Sorry, talking too much. Go ahead.
• 37:02
  No, no, I I would just add, I add I mean, but but can we
• 37:04
  agree? I mean, I, I've been tracking
• 37:06
  because I've been tracking the defense angle of this company
• 37:08
  for a very long time, very long time.
• 37:11
  But hear them specifically why I'd about some of these
• 37:14
  capabilities in that call last night were shocking to me.
• 37:18
  I just, I, I know the stock was down today.
• 37:21
  I mean, I, I have enough of it already.
• 37:23
  So I'm not buying more. But I, I mean, I just don't know
• 37:26
  how many people were really modelling that the degree of
• 37:28
  defense in the company. Well, that would probably be a
• 37:32
  positive signal then if they're speaking about it directly
• 37:35
  because, you know, a lot of these companies, it's very
• 37:38
  difficult for them to guide on, on defence contracts.
• 37:42
  And I think that has a lot to do with it.
• 37:44
  So if they're actually speaking about it now, there must be a
• 37:47
  higher level of confidence within the the C-Suite that at
• 37:53
  least they have some kind of clarity, if not, you know, draft
• 37:57
  contracts, you know, in the pipeline, so to speak.
• 38:08
  Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
• 38:11
  If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
• 38:14
  podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
• 38:17
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• 38:20
  To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
• 38:24
  sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
• 38:26
  next time. We're doing something very, very
• 38:32
  big, and I think with this technology we can really affect
• 38:35
  billion lives. ASP Space Global is the only
• 38:38
  company that has full technology to deliver cellular broadband
• 38:43
  connectivity directly from space to the everyday smartphone.
• 38:47
  People will just basically turn their phone and be seamless,
• 38:50
  regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
• 38:53
  know that it's connected by satellite.
• 38:56
  Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership
• 39:00
  with the MMO.