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The first batch of commercial satellites from AST SpaceMobile — a potential competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink system — may not launch in Q1 as originally planned. Instead, the company indicated it needs more time to address several factors including testing, assembling and “regulatory approvals.”“Based on the current estimate, we believe the launch will occur in the second quarter of 2024,” a company spokesperson told PCMag. AST SpaceMobile is currently testing and assembling five “BlueBird” satellites, or what represents the company’s first block of satellites to power the space-based cellular network. Last year, AST SpaceMobile demonstrated that the technology works by using a prototype satellite called BlueWalker 3 to beam download rates as high as 14Mbps to unmodified smartphones on the ground.
To send up the BlueBird satellites, the company signed a deal in 2022 with SpaceX to act as the launch provider. AST SpaceMobile added: “We have flexibility under the launch services agreement to reschedule the date of this dedicated launch, subject to the launch vehicle provider’s launch schedule availability.” The company spokesperson went on to say: “The exact timing of this launch is contingent upon a number of factors, including satisfactory and timely completion of assembly, integrating and testing of the satellites, logistics, weather conditions, regulatory approvals, and other factors, many of which are beyond our control.”AST SpaceMobile provided PCMag with the update after the company’s CEO Abel Avellan published a letter to shareholders. The company expects to receive up to $306.5 million in funding through investors including Google, AT&T and Vodafone to help it build out the satellite network. “With our first five commercial satellites fully-funded, last year we turned our attention to building and launching the next-generation BlueBirds, which are designed for a 10x improvement in throughput,” Avellan wrote.
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Both Google and AT&T want to tap the company’s technology to supply satellite connectivity to consumer phones. But AST SpaceMobile will need more than $306 million to build out the first stages of its own network. “We believe we need to launch and operate 25 BB satellites (5 Block 1 BB satellites and 20 Block 2 BB satellites) in order to provide coverage to the most commercially attractive MNO (Mobile Network Operator) markets,” the company said in a stock exchange filing back in November. As a result, AST SpaceMobile has projected it’ll need to raise a total of $550 million to $650 million to manufacture the additional 20 BlueBird satellites and then operate them.In the meantime, SpaceX has also been working to deliver satellite connectivity to smartphones through its cellular Starlink network. Earlier this month, the company successfully used the first cellular Starlink satellites to relay text messages to phones on the ground. SpaceX is now preparing to launch hundreds of cellular Starlink satellites in the coming months, but it still needs regulatory approval from the FCC to operate the network commercially in the US.
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