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Anpanman - Two words - Golden Dome · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
0:10
Where we just basically come your phone be seamless
0:14
regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by satellite.
0:21
Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:24
Large. Hey everyone, thanks for
0:29
joining. We're going to get started here
0:30
shortly. I'm just going to put this on
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mute. What's weird is the desktop
0:34
application, I believe doesn't play background music, which is
0:39
which is a nice feature of the mobile app, but it doesn't seem
0:44
like the desktop app has has music.
0:48
So that's bizarre. Anyway, I will I'll come back
0:52
shortly here. I just got to do something and
0:54
then we'll start. All right, I'm back.
0:58
I think I'm going to name this podcast.
1:00
Are you bullish enough or because, yeah, I'm having to
1:05
come back, you know, overnight and throughout the day some new
1:09
news comes out and then it I kind of piece stuff together and
1:13
then I just feel compelled to have to go on a space and talk
1:16
about it. So but yeah, thanks everyone for
1:19
joining. There's been a few Nuggets that
1:24
kind of came out overnight. And then I, I thought a bit more
1:26
about again, like the, the UBS conference where Scott spoke
1:31
and, and so I just wanted to talk about it.
1:34
So, you know, I, I labeled this space Golden Dome because I
1:39
think that's probably something for people who are invested in
1:43
AST space mobile. It's something that's top of
1:44
mind. But for those people who are not
1:47
familiar with the company, they have no clue what's going on.
1:51
They, they just think about the company as providing, you know,
1:56
broadband cellular connectivity to unmodified phones.
2:01
And that's even if they have any idea like what AST Space Mobile
2:04
is. Interestingly, this morning I
2:07
was reading Bloomberg put out this large piece on various
2:12
growth sectors in aerospace and defense.
2:15
And when I went through the area for space and defense, there's
2:22
absolutely 0 mention of AST Space Mobile.
2:25
And so that that kind of shows you what we're dealing with
2:28
here. The market just has no clue
2:30
what's about to hit them. And I think it's going to be an
2:33
absolute load of bricks that gets dropped on people and
2:36
there's going to be a complete scramble to figure out how they
2:39
miss this. And more importantly, like, why,
2:41
you know, why, why should they invest in ASD Space Mobile?
2:44
And so, yeah, I just want to let's let maybe I'll just start
2:49
by saying, you know, putting together some of the pieces, the
2:52
Mosaic space space mob, I guess it was like a few months ago,
2:59
you know, there were some filings with the FCC where the
3:02
company started putting some meat around the fact that we are
3:08
going to have some of the satellites in a polar orbit.
3:12
And you typically would do that, meaning, you know, the the
3:15
satellites orbit from the north to South Pole.
3:20
And the reason why you would do that is you want to have, and
3:23
this is friendly for military applications, but also for Earth
3:26
observation. You know, some, some companies
3:28
use utilize this orbit as well, but you want to be able to map
3:31
and have coverage of every single square inch of the Earth.
3:35
And when it comes to applications like sensing and
3:39
detecting, for example, missile launches, which if the US has to
3:44
deal with those in the future, which I hope we never do, a lot
3:48
of those missiles would probably be coming over the North Pole in
3:53
order to hit, you know, locations in the US And so radar
3:58
and sensing capabilities to detect those launches requires
4:02
that you have a polar orbit. And so we learned because it was
4:06
like a few months ago that EST is going to have a shell that
4:11
orbits that has a polar orbit. I think if I remember correctly,
4:17
it was something like north of 20 satellites are expected to
4:19
have that orbit. So, so, yeah, you don't file to
4:22
do that to address consumer applications.
4:25
I mean, it's not like there's a ton of researchers out in the
4:28
Arctic that need mobile connectivity.
4:31
I mean, that's nice, but you know, it's not a huge growth
4:34
market. But so the fact that we are
4:38
planning to to have satellites there is a big giveaway that,
4:43
you know, there's obviously military implications here.
4:47
The other thing is that FM 2 and FM one were delayed because of
4:51
some changes customer requirements which you know, I
4:55
mean this is speculation from space mob, but pretty sure those
4:58
are those were military requests and changes.
5:03
And so for example, FM 2 which we're still waiting on that that
5:08
satellite has actually has a has a change in inclination of where
5:11
it's going to be. And you know, Kathy and I have
5:14
talked about it a bit and it's, it seems like there's some
5:18
pretty clear use cases as to why that inclination is changing.
5:22
And it's important to note that, you know, when you launch or
5:26
launch on a, on a, you launch a satellite, you can't just go to
5:31
the launch provider and say, hey, we're going to change the
5:33
inclination. You know, especially if you were
5:36
going to do that as a rideshare when other customers are are
5:38
seeking to have very specific orbits, you can't just say, hey,
5:43
actually can we go to a different inclination?
5:47
You know, typically you would want or you would have to get a
5:52
ride on another launch that actually fits out of inclination
5:55
or you have to get a dedicated launch.
5:57
And so, so yeah, that I think that kind of explains a bit as
6:03
to why FM 2 is, has been delayed, some changes in
6:06
customer requirements, not only potentially in some of the
6:10
hardware that's on on the satellite, but also the mission
6:12
what they're trying to test. And so the other thing is that
6:16
you've got, you know, this this new disclosure.
6:21
And so we know the company has been ramping up manufacturing
6:26
space. You know, we've gone from
6:30
initial disclosure. I think of the summer is that
6:33
the company, you know, picked up office space in Homestead, FL
6:36
and also in Spain. And so that got square footage
6:40
up to like 400,000, which is huge.
6:43
And then recently they expanded Midland to get to 500,000.
6:48
And then Scott mentioned in this call that they're actually
6:52
looking for more space and they're looking to put up more
6:58
manufacturing space to be dedicated solely to Micron
7:01
production, which I think is a huge sign, right?
7:04
Like as we know in a lot of these military programs and, and
7:07
especially for Golden Dome, it requires a lot of upfront CapEx
7:11
and you have to show the government that you have the
7:15
capability to produce what they're requesting and you have
7:20
the capital to do it. And so I think that was a pretty
7:24
big tell there. The fact that they're expanding
7:28
what was already expanded production in Midland, they're
7:31
they're doing even more. And on top of that, you, I think
7:36
what was it, I think it was like a week or two after they did
7:39
the, the massive convert in October.
7:44
You know, I was talking with the company about it and there was
7:49
this, you know, I'd asked, you know, had this been in the plans
7:53
like, you know, what, what is the capital being used for?
7:55
And they had said, you know, there were there were no plans
8:00
to raise that quantum of capital, you know, sometime I
8:04
guess in August, September, however, due to some
8:08
opportunities that came up and became concrete and of course,
8:12
like stock price, you know, it performed quite well, They
8:15
decided to go out and raise that money in order to go execute
8:19
against those opportunities. And so I think that's another
8:22
tell like as Cook has mentioned his space before, a lot of this
8:27
government work, you actually need to come fully capitalized
8:31
and show the government that you're making a commitment that
8:34
you can do what you say you're going to do.
8:36
And so this acceleration and expansion of production well
8:43
beyond what's needed for commercial tells you something
8:48
that the company is confident that they are going to win some
8:52
pretty big awards here. And it's not like some small
8:55
award like they're, they're, you know, we've gone from 500
8:59
employees to 1800 and who knows where it is now, but they're,
9:04
they're, you know, the disclosure of getting to 6
9:09
satellites per month, but eventually having the capacity
9:11
to get that to 12 satellites a month.
9:14
Like I think the original idea was to do 6 satellites to, to
9:18
stand up the block 2 constellation.
9:20
And, you know, maybe you might increase a little more to get a
9:23
head start on the mid band constellation, but to double
9:25
production that, that tells me that they're expecting, you
9:30
know, big government work to come down Pike.
9:34
And so to close that you've got, you know, Scott at the end of
9:39
the the discussion saying, you know, they're going to have a
9:43
couple shells up, you know, consulate they call shells
9:46
constellations, but you're going to have a couple shells up.
9:49
But then beyond that, you know, potentially a government shell.
9:53
And that's about as like concrete as it gets.
9:55
Like he's telling the market and telling us that they fully
10:01
expect to win government work and, and the big and you know,
10:07
it's not, it's not as if you go well beyond 500, five, 100,000
10:12
square feet and 12 satellites per month to do something small.
10:16
I mean, this is we're talking big scale here.
10:19
And so the other thing that I that I didn't really talk about
10:24
yesterday, which actually, and again, This is why I'm back on
10:27
this mic talking about it. The other thing that, that, that
10:32
I didn't cover is the fact that we're doing this all and the
10:35
reason why it makes sense. And, and Scott talked about this
10:37
like, you know, having putting up the most power, the largest
10:40
arrays at the cheapest cost, you know, known in the history of,
10:46
of civilization. And, and that, that last part is
10:48
really critical, right? Like cost, cost is huge.
10:53
If you look at traditional primes, if they were to do
10:57
something comparable in terms of capability, you know, you know,
11:01
power and communications and processing, you're probably
11:04
looking at a program where each satellite's going to run you 300
11:08
million to a billion dollars. And I think that's inclusive of
11:11
launch and and launch it is, is a pretty big piece, at least for
11:16
AST space mobile of the per cost per cost of satellites.
11:21
However, you have AST who can go to the government and say, look,
11:24
we're we're putting the satellites up for 21 to $23
11:29
million a piece. I mean that's, that's the,
11:32
that's the cost that's not allocating of course like Rd.
11:36
and and all these other things. But that's the incremental cost
11:38
of materials putting it together and then the launch cost that
11:43
that's really compelling like that versus 300 million to a
11:50
billion dollars. And then when thinking about
11:56
Golden Dome, timing is everything as well.
11:58
Like there's a lot of these contractors that are putting
12:03
forward solutions and, and they're trying to win work and
12:07
they're like, well, you know where we'll, we're give us some
12:10
money and we're going to build this capability for you.
12:12
We'll deliver it in one 2-3 years.
12:14
I mean, we know how that primes are pretty slow on this stuff,
12:16
whereas ASD space mobile, like the satellite is ready.
12:21
It's it, it can serve a multi role mission and it's ready like
12:25
we're launching these things and and it's clear.
12:28
FM 1 and FM two were built to spec or the Halo demonstration,
12:34
which Halo had asked for two prototypes to be launched and
12:39
deployed. I think it was like before the
12:43
end of 2026, but the company is like, shit, let's just do it
12:46
now, which was smart because then then of course, like, you
12:52
know, Trump won the presidency and then there's Golden Dome
12:57
became a thing. And and so by putting those two
13:00
satellites up, that's going to be a huge or that that I think
13:06
probably was a bit a key factor as to why or will be a key
13:10
factor as to why I think the government's going to give the
13:13
company a big award. But yeah, so those, you know,
13:17
going back to price, it's something that I think is lost
13:21
on market and and folks where it's, you know, 21 to $23
13:25
million to send up 100 kWh generating satellite that can
13:29
do, you know, direct to device communications.
13:34
But then also sensing radar, you know, some level of, of compute,
13:39
which, you know, we talked about before, if you wanted to shift
13:42
to this data center idea, you would swap out the processors
13:46
and you would reconfigure their satellite.
13:48
But I think it's important that, you know, the whole idea of data
13:51
centers in space, like that's, that's still some time away, but
13:56
everybody is now it's, it's a rush to get there, right?
13:59
But the near term objective is for military to have some level
14:04
of intelligence in the space layer, because you know, we
14:09
talked about how you want resiliency, but also some of the
14:13
ground assets that you're communicating with.
14:15
Or perhaps if you're relying on ground data centers to do the
14:19
compute, that those data centers may not be around in a, in an
14:24
environment where you have a conflict.
14:26
And you know, perhaps like maybe some of that conflict comes to
14:29
the US, which which would be bad.
14:31
But so that's why you need you need compute actually up in
14:36
space. And so that's why, you know,
14:38
this stuff is relevant, but what really kind of brought
14:42
everything home. So, so I think the company is
14:45
well positioned for, for Golden Dome.
14:47
I tweeted about this, about how the $23 million price point I
14:53
think is, is kind of like a checkmate metric for the
14:56
Department of War because they can put up a lot of these
15:00
satellites for relatively inexpensive cost.
15:02
It's not like you're going to a prime and, and they're going to
15:05
charge you a few $100 million a piece like this is $23 million
15:10
and it solves 2 huge problems around missile defense. 1 is
15:14
like getting power into orbit. And the other one is, is
15:18
actually creating a, a highly capable, you know, sensor,
15:24
right, that can do a radar sensing PNT, all these things.
15:27
I mean, the satellite can in its current form without
15:30
modification, you can do a lot of the functions that you're
15:33
trying to that you're trying to complete that will be part of
15:38
golden Dome. And so one one tweet that Elon
15:43
Musk had had put out overnight, which kind of brought me home,
15:47
is that he specifically discussed how Starlink V3, which
15:52
is their much larger satellite, I believe you know, their, their
15:55
current satellite has a phased array of like 2.5 to 2.5 meters.
16:00
This one is going to be somewhere along the lines of
16:02
like 5 by 5 meters, 5 meters by 5 meters.
16:06
So it's going to be a much bigger phase array.
16:09
But that satellite, which is their next generation, you know,
16:12
they're hoping it's much bigger. They're hoping to get that
16:14
satellite up sometime over 2026. But it's, it's all predicated on
16:19
Starship because that the way that that satellite stoves and
16:23
unfolds like it doesn't fit into a standard fairing, which, you
16:27
know, go back to some of our IP, the novel, what we call the
16:31
waffle, the way that you can shove so much solar panels and,
16:37
and antennas into a very compact form factor like that, that's
16:40
really important. And so, you know, Musk yesterday
16:46
disclosed that each of the V3 satellites will be capable of
16:49
generating 20 kilowatts of power.
16:52
And, and, oh, and he said, you know, he thinks he'll launch at
16:56
scale around Q4 next year, which, you know, if you
16:59
extrapolate that, that's probably more like 2027 because
17:02
as we know, space is hard. But he talks specifically about
17:06
how it's not going to be a problem.
17:07
Scaled that to 100 kilowatts if the satellite mass is shifted
17:10
towards solar arrays and radiators for AI compute instead
17:13
of the giant phased array antennas for Internet
17:15
connectivity. And that, that that phased array
17:18
is, is specifically for mobile devices.
17:22
And so, you know, he, there were some tweets from him just
17:27
talking about how it's not, it's not going to be that difficult
17:33
to shift and reconfigure that satellite for AI compute versus
17:37
communications. And so I think, you know, you,
17:40
you got to discount that to some degree.
17:41
But Elan, he's a smart guy and he's, he's, he's experienced in
17:45
SpaceX, has a ton of smart engineers.
17:46
I think that just kind of highlights that the problem of
17:50
solving communications, especially for mobile
17:53
communications is, is pretty difficult and shouldn't be
17:57
discounted relative to being able to pivot some of that
18:00
technology to them focus on AI compute.
18:04
But the most important thing about that tweet is the fact
18:08
that SpaceX, these V3 satellites, they're not going to
18:12
be ready and they're not going to be ready for a long time.
18:16
They're not going to be ready till 2027, perhaps even later.
18:20
And you're looking at a, a design change in order to get
18:24
the right to get over 100 kilowatts of power.
18:28
And so I guess one thing I don't know is how Star Shield kind of
18:31
plays into all this. I'm not sure exactly what the
18:34
capabilities are for of Star Shield.
18:35
But the key thing here is that, you know, AST has the satellites
18:41
and they're being, you're on the cusp of launching our first one
18:44
and, and they're going to be rolling.
18:46
And, you know, we're, I think we're pretty close to getting by
18:49
the end of this month. My guess is we'll have 6 block 2
18:52
satellites completed after FM 1. And we'll, we'll start rolling
18:55
these things out like hotcakes. But for Golden Dome, the key
19:00
requirement is that Trump wants that system up and running
19:05
before the end of his term. And so, you know, we're talking
19:10
2028. That's not much time.
19:12
And so when you're the US government and you're looking at
19:15
who to give awards to, hey, look, there's this company in
19:19
Midland, TX that is building a six to seven ton satellite that
19:25
can generate 100 kilowatts of power.
19:27
It has a ton of compute on it that could be swappable, You
19:30
know, it could put GPUs or Tpus in there, but it's, it's got
19:35
sensing. It can do your radar PNT, it can
19:39
do all these things. Like to me, that sounds like
19:42
it's going to be, as I mentioned in the tweet, a, a core like the
19:47
backbone of, of sensing power infrastructure for gold and
19:51
Jones. And so that's what I meant by,
19:54
you know, yesterday, having this, this moment of absolute
19:58
clarity, it's like, oh, it's all here.
20:00
Like it's, it's coming. All the pieces lined up, it all
20:04
makes sense. And so I think someone had
20:08
mentioned that the, the house had passed funding and, and for
20:13
Golden Dome, I think that was like yesterday, maybe the day
20:16
before. And so my guess is like we
20:19
start, we'll start hearing, you know, we saw, we heard some
20:21
initial pieces of I guess smaller work, maybe it was a
20:25
week ago. But we're going to start hearing
20:28
rumblings and I, I don't know if there's like going to be a
20:30
formal announcement from White House about this.
20:33
I'm sure there will because they're, they're always focused
20:36
on getting as much PR possible out of these things.
20:39
But you know, will the company announce anything?
20:42
I'm not sure maybe, but who knows?
20:45
Like if it's, I know the primes have been pretty vocal about
20:49
their work. And so I'm not sure like when
20:52
and if the company went out to stuff.
20:53
But what I do know is like, just given how many folks are, are,
21:01
you know, part of Golden Dome on the government side and, and
21:04
contractors like this stuff will eventually get out to the
21:06
market. And so I, I, you know, Cook
21:09
talks about this whole concept of the invisible hand and how
21:14
things, you know, we always talk about whether things are priced
21:17
in or not. I don't think the market, you
21:23
know, I don't think the mark Golden Dome is priced in at all
21:26
for AST space mobile. Like it's for someone outside
21:30
looking in like it's all speculation.
21:32
And you know, look at these like retail investors who knows?
21:35
They're a bunch of they're crazy and they're just here to pump
21:39
the stock and who what do they know?
21:41
But as I've mentioned before, like the, the, the amount of due
21:45
diligence that the space Mop does and the ability to put
21:49
together the mosaic is on parallel.
21:51
And I do think and it, I, I guess to place our advantage,
21:57
right. I don't think the market expects
21:58
this. You've still got skeptics in the
22:00
company just even for the core business, but no one's, no one's
22:04
valuing Golden Dome. But I think there's a huge
22:07
opportunity here. Like imagine, you know, if we
22:11
find out just, you know, hypothetically, like if we find
22:15
out the company gets a few $100 million or a billion dollar
22:18
contract for Golden Dome to provide, you know, sensing and
22:23
power for the consolation. Like where does stock go and how
22:30
do people value that opportunity?
22:32
Like people view the company more as a, you know, direct to
22:39
device, you know, providing service to consumers, but they
22:43
don't really think about it as a defense opportunity.
22:46
And so when that's opened up, like how do people value the
22:49
stock? How does it re rate?
22:50
Does it? I mean, might I, if, if the
22:54
company got like a billion dollar award from Golden Dome in
22:58
the next few weeks, like the stock could double like it's an
23:05
opportunity that the market's not pricing in.
23:06
And, and part of what fits that narrative is the fact that
23:09
Scott, what I think was it at B of A, he talked about some,
23:15
someone at the research channels talked about it the, the, how
23:19
revenues were going to unfold for the company.
23:21
And he specifically mentioned, you know, near term it's going
23:24
to be all government. Like this year, we're talking
23:26
10s of millions, 2026 will be hundreds of millions of
23:29
government. And then following that, that's
23:32
when consumer like the M&O, you know, the business that we have
23:37
with AT&T, Verizon, Saudi Telecom, Vodafone, that's when
23:40
that business is going to ramp up and scale.
23:42
It's going to be 2027. And So what gives you confidence
23:47
of a few 100 million in government revenue in 2026?
23:50
Like isn't that obvious? Like it's got to be Golden Dome,
23:53
right? Like some of these other
23:54
programs are, are going to be big and potentially big, but the
23:58
one that gives you immediate scale in terms of revenue and
24:03
impact is going to be Golden Dome.
24:05
And so, yeah, I don't know. I think the timing was people
24:12
because of government shutdown, it got pushed back.
24:14
But I think we'll probably hear something more formal in
24:17
January. But you know, there's, there's
24:19
like 2 weeks left in December, I think, I think things are going
24:22
to start leaking my guess. And, and we'll hear some
24:25
information about who's winning these things and, and people's
24:29
level of involvement. And I think AST is going to be
24:32
right there in the middle. And so yeah, it's I, I don't, I
24:40
joke, but we're not bullish enough.
24:44
Give you, you put all the pieces together.
24:47
I'm highly confident it's going to happen and it's going to be
24:51
big. It's not going to be small.
24:54
Yeah. And in yes, there's going to
24:57
there is this aspect of we've talked about leveraging dual use
25:01
like you know, the government will yeah, certainly they're
25:03
going to want to use the Block 2 consolation for dual use in
25:06
terms of communications and PNT. But I think this is important
25:10
enough and big enough where the, the government is going to ask
25:13
for a separate shell and it's going to be part of what, what,
25:19
what, what is going to power the infrastructure layer or golden
25:22
Dome. And that, you know, I could be
25:23
wrong, that's my speculation. But one thing that I've been
25:28
good at in my career has been kind of piercing stuff together.
25:32
And I, I initially did this primarily for corporate actions
25:35
and M&A. But then as I moved over to, you
25:39
know, when it's, I left the industry and was investing on my
25:41
own, being able to piece stuff together and thinking about
25:46
themes too, like that's always been one of my it's ranks.
25:48
And so, yeah, it seems pretty obvious and abundantly obvious,
25:53
like this is kind of where things are going.
25:55
The other thing that I talked about yesterday, which I think
25:58
is, I mean, we're seeing it now. It's happening like pretty
26:02
quickly is, is 2026, I think is going to be the year for space
26:06
investing. And so for people who are well
26:09
versed in these names and understand what companies have
26:12
the proper capabilities, and I mean, it's going to be huge.
26:16
And you know, all these, I think all the skeptics who have been
26:24
floating around the industry and you know, kind of Pooh poohed
26:27
everything. I, I think the amount of CapEx
26:29
and spending around defense, around communications, around
26:34
what is now like compute in space, like AI data centers,
26:39
which I think in the near term, we're not replacing terrestrial
26:42
data centers, but it's going to be something along the lines of,
26:45
you know, the, the infrastructure that's out in
26:48
space is going to need AI compute.
26:50
And so you're going to start seeing some of those
26:53
applications emerge. But then as people kind of learn
26:58
and, and of course test and, and refine their thinking around it,
27:02
eventually, you know, years from now, then you will have the
27:05
potential where AI data centers in space or data centers in
27:09
general, we'll start taking over some of the, the load from
27:12
threshold data centers, as I talked about yesterday, like if
27:15
you extrapolate the need for power, land cooling, which is
27:20
water resources in general, it's just not going to be
27:24
sustainable. Like whether you need data
27:28
Centers for AI, crypto, whatever it is, whatever application, you
27:31
just can't keep building these things because there's
27:33
consequences, right? And, and you've got a way and
27:37
balance those consequences against the needs of humans.
27:39
And so it's it's not, it's pretty finite down here.
27:44
And so I think, I think moving Dave's hundreds in space is
27:48
eventuality it's going to happen.
27:50
There's a lot of problems to solve.
27:51
And you've seen debates kind of blowing up on Twitter and people
27:54
poo pooping it. And but yeah, that's usually how
27:57
transformative technologies get introduced to the market.
28:01
People laugh it off, they scoff at it and then as they dig in
28:06
it, it goes back to the whole adage of the AC space mobile.
28:09
We have the same where for new people to AC space mobile, if
28:14
you, if you look at the company and spend about 5 minutes of due
28:17
diligence, you'll probably want to short the company.
28:19
But then if you spend an hour of due diligence and really dig in
28:23
and with an open mind, you'll actually want to mortgage your
28:26
house and go on. Which funny enough, like it's
28:29
probably a true story for some of you guys.
28:33
But anyway, yeah, it's an exciting time.
28:36
I think. I don't think I've ever been
28:40
this bullish before. And that's that's saying, I
28:44
mean, this is going to be way bigger than the Verizon DA,
28:48
right? Verizon coming on board and, and
28:50
changing the game for the company where it's like, Oh
28:52
yeah, we got AT&T and Verizon. I mean that that obviously was
28:55
huge. And we wouldn't be here today
28:56
without Verizon coming on board because that pretty much
28:59
validated everything the company did back in at the end of May of
29:03
2024. But this this award Golden Dome
29:08
is going to open up completely new like growth vector and way
29:12
that investors see the company. And you know, you've got TMT
29:18
investors already maybe kicking around.
29:21
And then there's to be like new sector investors who are focused
29:24
on space because it's going to be a thing now like for 2026.
29:28
And then you're to suck in all the defense guys, the defense
29:30
specialists to who probably haven't been looking AC space
29:34
mobile and, and once you get a Golden Dome award, they're going
29:38
to be like, oh, that's, that's really interesting.
29:41
Like I need to go, I need to go research that, that company and
29:44
figure out if there's an opportunity to invest.
29:48
And so, yeah, it's, it's an exciting time.
29:52
And I think Q1 is setting up to be huge, right?
29:57
Like we've got, we've got a rocket launching which is a big
30:01
event catalyst coming up, which you know got pushed off to the
30:04
20th I think due to some of the space conditions.
30:06
But that's out of Israel short Shortly thereafter, which will
30:10
probably be early January, you're going to have BB7.
30:14
And my guess is we're going to get some PR in the next few
30:19
weeks of the first batch of three Block 2 satellites that
30:24
will be sent to the Cape Canaveral.
30:26
I think that's going to happen relatively soon.
30:29
And then probably not long after that, the second batch of three.
30:33
And so, yeah, against that backdrop, you know, you've got,
30:37
we've talked about this before, but you got Powell who, you
30:39
know, cut rates and it's I think yesterday's meeting was quite
30:42
dovish. And 11 interesting facet which
30:46
people kind of forget is like inflation was a lot of it was
30:50
caused by Trump's terrorists. And so when thinking about the
30:54
the macroeconomic backdrop, like if there's if inflation does get
30:58
hot, Trump kind of has this funny lever now that he can
31:02
pull, he can just just remove tariffs on certain items and
31:06
then inflation comes down. Funny.
31:09
Weird how that works. But yeah, the environment is
31:11
solid. I mean, we've got all these
31:13
catalysts coming up for the company and, and we got this big
31:17
one, which many of you guys already know Golden Dome.
31:20
Of course, you know, it's not, it's not, it's doesn't, it's not
31:22
going to happen until it's not done until it's done.
31:26
But I am supremely confident it's coming.
31:30
And I think, as I said before, the market that is definitely
31:34
not priced in the market doesn't understand that they don't know
31:37
why AST space mobile has any applicability, but it's coming
31:42
and people, whether they like it or not, it's going to be shoved
31:44
down their throats because, oh, this company is going to be a
31:50
key component to power and, and provide communications and
31:54
sensing for Golden Dome. Like I need to go learn about it
31:58
and maybe these people on Twitter with these red A's, like
32:01
maybe there aren't half as crazy as I thought they were.
32:05
It's just funny to think about. So anyway, yeah, that's, that's
32:09
what I had to say. Mostly.
32:11
Let me just check and see if there's comments.
32:14
I know folks, I mentioned in the past that because I'm doing this
32:18
now on the desktop app, you can't actually leave comments
32:20
directly in the space, but you can leave comments on the tweet
32:24
that I put out for the space. So let me see here, Omni
32:29
Aeronautica SpaceX V3 sets need an ASIC as well as Starship V3
32:34
sets likely not available no earlier than 28.
32:38
That's true. Elan has talked about the need
32:42
for Asic's for performance for AV 3.
32:44
But similarly to ASD, they probably could just, you know,
32:47
put Fpgas in first just to get those satellites up and running
32:52
and do testing. And so I think to get to the the
32:56
highest levels of performance, they will need that ASIC.
32:58
And I remember researching it a bit and there's some people who
33:02
are closer to Starlink who have said that they probably have
33:05
been working on the ASIC for some time.
33:06
So, so it's probably sooner than we think.
33:09
But typically an ASIC is a three to five year process.
33:12
They're probably, they probably will have an ASIC ready sometime
33:15
in 2027. And then, but you know, if they
33:19
go through growing pains like we did, you know, it took a long
33:22
time to spin up our ASIC and maybe that gets laid by another
33:25
month. But fortunately for us, our ASIC
33:28
is ready and it's being integrated into satellites in
33:31
the first quarter of 2026. And so that's another, that's
33:35
another big one. So when it's AFTE and we know
33:41
Trump loves things that are the biggest, yes, that's true.
33:44
So Bluebirds just from a the ability to boast about having
33:51
the biggest Bluebird satellites, the block ones are the largest
33:54
communications array in low Earth orbit and then those are
33:57
going to be dwarfed by Block 2 satellites which were which are
34:00
three times bigger. So the ability to we have the
34:04
biggest and most beautiful satellites that's going to that.
34:08
I guess that's another marginal benefit of giving us a big
34:14
award. Let's see someone's asked.
34:21
OK, I don't see any other questions.
34:26
All right, Or maybe hear some more.
34:34
Yeah, there's let's see, there's some oh someone saying isn't
34:38
this the most risky stock to short at the moment?
34:41
Yes, I think so because you have we're on the for 2026.
34:45
We have all these things are these catalysts coming and then
34:48
this again, this Golden Dome reward I don't think is aside
34:52
from some crazy space mob members, I don't think anyone's
34:54
really talking about it. If you look at the South side
34:57
research, there's basically like no mansion.
34:59
I mean, there there is the the discussion of potential military
35:02
use cases, but I don't think there's been anything about
35:05
Golden Dome. The other thing is I think it
35:09
like Bank of America, if you looked at like their 2026 and
35:14
2027 projections, like they have nothing for military revenues.
35:20
And so, yeah, as people kind of refine their financial models,
35:25
they will have to, you know, revise forecasts higher.
35:30
Like if you get a Golden Dome award, that's huge.
35:33
And you add that on top of the billion dollars of contracted
35:36
committed commercial revenue from M and OS, you know, what
35:40
does that get you? Right.
35:41
And so those numbers are going to have to go up and and
35:46
research analysts like Scotia who downgraded the stock based
35:49
off of, you know, valuation, but not really thinking about what
35:52
they were doing. They're going to have to re
35:54
evaluate, you know, their their research and question their
35:58
choices in life, right? Especially, you know, when we
36:01
get that award. Let's see, can you mention
36:09
discussions around solar power rays and where you see this
36:11
going for potential CapEx revenue capture?
36:15
I don't know, it's early. I mean the so one thing I was
36:20
thinking about is the fact that you know we are going to have
36:23
these factories building microns and you can these are building
36:27
as as a Bell has said over many years, these are building
36:30
blocks. You can do all kinds of stuff
36:31
with this with these components, those microns that that design
36:37
has not changed since the beginning.
36:38
So the initial microns from Blue Walker three were I think it's
36:42
30 centimeters by 30 centimeter panels.
36:45
And then then for block 2, they, they put two of those together.
36:51
And then for block 3, I believe each fold is like 16 of them.
36:57
And so, you know, part of the, the, the change for block 3.
37:02
I'm sorry, I'm not block 3. Block 2 is that the unfolded
37:06
mechanism is going to be a lot simpler.
37:08
There's going to be less, less folds to get to a fully deployed
37:13
array or unfolds. And so there's there's in terms
37:18
of reducing complexity like that's really important.
37:21
But but then, you know, when, when contemplating some of these
37:26
future applications, you could see a world where maybe if the
37:32
company's not going to directly, you know, provide satellites for
37:38
certain applications, it might actually sell microns without
37:42
the antenna side. But it might sell the microns to
37:46
or, or be part of like as a, as a group satellite project to
37:50
provide the power. And so there's a lot of
37:53
opportunities. I mean, I think as we mentioned
37:57
before, you know, there's, there's the, the ability to
38:05
leverage the, the patent portfolio, which is 3800 patents
38:08
and you know, you can go provide licenses to to other
38:13
manufacturers who want to utilize the technology, But that
38:17
doesn't seem to be the focus right now.
38:19
The company is, is putting up production capacity because they
38:23
want to go attack all these opportunities.
38:25
And so for a start up, like ASTI mean, for all intents purposes,
38:31
it's still a start up, even though it's, it's big, but you
38:34
know, going through production hell and trying to get
38:36
production up to a level where they can attack all these
38:40
issues, these markets, You know, we, we, we talk about how like,
38:44
it's an insurmountable wall of opportunity.
38:47
It's like, you know, you, you stand up production and you go
38:51
try to pursue all these things. And then there's more, there's
38:54
more applications and customers coming to you asking for asking
38:59
to work with you in which I I fully believe, like I think for
39:02
the AI did get center opportunity.
39:03
The company again, there's not, there's not any companies out
39:08
there that are putting six to seven ton satellites up in
39:10
space. And that that also includes
39:12
SpaceX, right? And so having, having the
39:16
ability to do something of that scale and size and, and having
39:20
100 to 120 kilowatts of onboard power that, that architecture
39:28
can be used for any number of applications.
39:31
And, and yeah, you know, is that going to be a competitive
39:34
advantage in two to three years? Not sure that the patents will
39:38
be there, but then I'm sure we'll start seeing other people
39:41
putting. If I was a defence prime, I'd,
39:43
I'd try to build a similar type of architecture cause 'cause
39:47
it's clear power is going to be the biggest problem in space
39:51
power. And of course the associated,
39:53
you know, technologies to dissipate the heat.
39:56
But yeah, we're well positioned. And I think going back to what
40:02
I, what I started with, I, I don't think we're bullish
40:04
enough. And so yes, we, we can have
40:08
203040I mean 50% drawdowns as a, as a macro backdrop changes and,
40:14
and who knows what the next few weeks will hold or next quarter
40:18
or two quarters. But rest assured, like I think
40:21
the company's opportunities ahead of it are very attractive
40:26
and they're coming. And I'm very confident in that.
40:29
So anyway, I'll, I'll wrap up the space there.
40:33
As I said before, I'll probably have to do another space
40:36
tomorrow or the day after. And, and Kook, you know, this,
40:39
this perhaps like alleviate some of the pressure for Kook to
40:42
cover everything. But yeah, man, we're, we're in a
40:47
very special place in a special time.
40:49
And this company is uniquely positioned and it's delivering,
40:54
you know, it's consolation and it has the technology at the
40:57
right time. And I think that's key.
40:59
Like there is some aspect of luck to this where Golden Dome
41:03
became something that was a focus for the country and the
41:07
company has the right technology at the right time and is on the
41:13
cusp of of, you know, ramping production and so unique
41:18
candidate to get, you know, a significant part of their Golden
41:22
Dome your awards. So I owned it with there and
41:27
we'll talk again perhaps tonight or tomorrow or the day after.
41:31
So thanks everyone for joining and we'll talk again.
41:36
Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
41:39
If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
41:42
podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
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media, or leave a rating and review.
41:48
To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
41:52
sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
41:54
next time. We're doing something very, very
42:00
big and I think with this technology we can really affect
42:03
billion lives. AFT Space Mobile is the only
42:06
company that has proven technology to deliver several of
42:10
mobile connectivity directly from the state to do everyday
42:14
smartphone. People will just basically turn
42:16
their phone be seamless regardless of where you are.
42:20
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
42:22
satellite. Our role is to bring this into
42:26
reality, always in Parliament, to the animal listen.
42:42
Waffles.