Episodes

AST tweeted that its satellites had arrived at Cape Canaveral, information the community already knew; Kook speculates the company may have held off posting until it had schedule certainty for the launch date, and floats a Monday announcement of a firm launch date as possible though he's 'not particularly hopeful.'

Kook pushes back hard on investors demanding the company 'control the narrative,' arguing AST already communicates extensively via its 10-K, earnings calls, investor presentations, and industry events, and that it deliberately avoids hyping unconfirmed programs like Golden Dome or Japan's J-LEO because of government confidentiality requirements and cultural protocol (especially with Japan).

Kook argues AST's strength in the 'awareness' and 'decision' components of the military 'kill chain' concept makes the J-LEO project strategically valuable to Golden Dome beyond basic connectivity use cases.

Kook discusses Elon Musk's public Twitter fight with India's government after an Indian billionaire he refers to as Ambani allegedly lobbied to block SpaceX; Kook argues this damages SpaceX's international standing because sovereign governments may distrust a US company with unilateral 'kill switch'-style control over connectivity.

Kook argues AST's B2B model, which 'vests power' in local mobile network operators and governments through data sovereignty, is a structural international advantage versus SpaceX's more centralized, vertically-integrated approach.

Kook says SpaceX bought low-band spectrum he describes casually as costing roughly '$8 billion, whatever,' which he believes is Nextel-era spectrum that's been around for about 20 years; the news triggered an immediate roughly 15% single-day ASTS stock drop on about 50 million shares traded.

Kook argues the purchase is actually good news for AST because it shows SpaceX removing itself as a B2B competitor and instead becoming a vertically-integrated B2C 'Starlink Mobile' provider, a business model Kook says is fundamentally inconsistent with how Elon Musk operates and with how AST's MNO-partnership model works.

Kook relays that two friends — a telecom industry contact with CEO-level MNO relationships and a banker with spectrum expertise — independently and unprompted told him the SpaceX news was good for ASTS, and cites Barron's publicly stating the stock drop 'shouldn't' have happened and calling it an endorsement of AST's strategy, alongside supportive sell-side notes from Berenberg and Roth.

Kook speculates the AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile joint venture, not AST directly, was likely the bidder that drove up the spectrum's price, and that AST may instead be positioned for a lease/revenue-share deal on that spectrum rather than an outright purchase, consistent with how AST already accesses partner spectrum without buying it outright.

Kook argues Starlink Mobile faces major structural hurdles: building out terrestrial towers and radios takes years, it likely lacks Apple/Samsung device partnerships, carrier churn is already low, and it would be entering a US market where AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile already compete intensely on price, device subsidies, and marketing.

Kook cites a banking friend's view that Starlink Mobile is not a meaningful threat to the big three US carriers 'before a 2040-type outcome.'

Kook relays analyst Tim Farrar's view that SpaceX's new terrestrial build-out will further delay its V2 direct-to-cell satellites, which already rely on Starship and had already slipped to the second half of 2028.

Kook estimates (doing rough math with an AI tool) that AST needs on the order of 25 launches on vehicles like New Glenn to field its 243-satellite constellation, while Starlink's roughly 15,000-satellite plan could require on the order of 300 Starship launches, with a minimum viable direct-to-cell product alone needing an estimated 50 Starship launches — a cadence he calls essentially impossible on current Starship timelines.

Kook argues the US MNO market, unlike the Boeing/Lockheed ULA launch monopoly born of insufficient demand, is a genuinely competitive 'street fight' between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile with thin margins and constant promotional spending, meaning Starlink would face real competition rather than a complacent incumbent structure.

Kook notes Abel Avellan tweeted about the aggregate spectrum held by US carriers, implying AST already has access to it, which Kook reads as a possible subtle confirmation of a T-Mobile relationship.

Kook says he was personally invited to invest in a new Blue Origin funding round at a high valuation with strong investor interest, and that Blue Origin is stacking first-stage boosters with roughly 20 second stages in production, which he says would materially improve AST's satellite deployment pace if New Glenn resumes launching reliably.

Kook recounts a past example with Anpanman: when AST announced its Verizon deal, the stock rose only about 5% despite what Kook considered monopoly-level significance for the stock (then trading around $5), prompting him to buy aggressively above the market offer; he draws a parallel to the current selloff, suggesting the market may again be mispricing good news before recognizing it.

He speculates SpaceX could deploy the spectrum via a new dedicated low-band D2D satellite (separate from its mid-band V2 satellite using EchoStar spectrum), plus a terrestrial tower/radio network, possibly using assets from Charlie Ergen's failed DISH wireless buildout.

He calls this a historic day and says AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile executives are likely holding emergency board meetings, though they probably already suspected the deal since Grain had been talking to AST and others.

He argues the deal is bad for the carriers (if Starlink captures even 3-10% market share) but very good for AST, because it locks the carriers into needing satellite service to counter Starlink's claimed 100% geographic coverage versus terrestrial networks' ~96% population coverage.

He references the T-Mobile CEO recently calling satellite coverage 'table stakes' as evidence carriers will be forced to deploy AST service broadly.

On why carriers won't instead work with Amazon or Globalstar on D2D: he says T-Mobile already lived this story with SpaceX/Starlink, which started as a partner and is now competing for the carriers' own subscribers, and expects Amazon would eventually do the same.

He states the strategic value of AST, 'this little company out of Midland,' has gone up again as a result of the Grain deal, even though it would have been nice for AST to have leased the Grain spectrum itself.

He credits FCC Chairman Brendan Carr with opening competition broadly: enabling SpaceX to compete against the MNOs via Grain's spectrum, while also freeing the MNOs to deploy all their own spectrum via satellite to counter Starlink.

He says the AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile telco joint venture was formed in May and, contrary to some industry consultants' claims that it exists to negotiate leverage against Starlink, was actually built to pool spectrum, terrestrial gateways and network integration to better compete against SpaceX's satellite ambitions.

He recalls John Stankey previously saying the telco JV would likely face a DOJ antitrust second request before approval, but argues Starlink's move to become a fourth competing carrier now strengthens the JV's case that it is not anti-competitive.

On concerns the JV could pressure AST's pricing, he says that's unlikely: the carriers need a healthy, well-funded AST partner to counter Starlink, so he expects the roughly 50/50 (maybe 40/60) revenue-sharing structure to be maintained rather than squeezed.

He analogizes Starlink to an openly cheating spouse and T-Mobile to the publicly embarrassed partner, arguing T-Mobile should move quickly to end its Starlink relationship and take back its satellite spectrum access.

He says a T-Mobile definitive agreement with AST, which he previously thought was months or quarters away (possibly Q1/Q2 of next year), could now come within days or weeks given the urgency created by the Grain deal.

He calls T-Mobile's original 2022 decision to partner with SpaceX/Starlink 'the ultimate strategic blunder,' arguing it indirectly helped AST by educating the market about direct-to-device and pushing Verizon and AT&T toward AST.

He argues many countries want sovereign satellite solutions rather than ceding mobile connectivity to a foreign operator like Starlink, which could 'eviscerate' local incumbent carriers who have invested in spectrum, infrastructure and jobs.

He suggests Japan's NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank, and Europe's Deutsche Telekom, are reassessing Starlink partnerships given Starlink's ambitions to eventually compete with its own carrier partners, strengthening the case for working with AST instead.

He argues SpaceX avoided acquiring an existing MNO because that would slow its growth profile and get it valued like a low-growth telecom rather than a high-growth company; buying spectrum and taking share instead preserves a growth narrative.

He notes SpaceX's ambitions extend beyond mobile phones to IoT, robotics and cars, giving it additional reasons to build out its own connectivity beyond just competing with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.

He says Blue Origin is getting back to the launch pad and should be ready to fly for AST again around January or February, giving AST another active launch provider.

Asked about Grain's likely asking price, he guesses it was around $6 billion or more based on earlier Bloomberg reporting about Grain soliciting offers, though the actual transaction value was not disclosed by SpaceX.

He says he never believed AST itself was trying to buy the Grain spectrum, since AST already has low-band access through carrier partnerships; he thinks Grain's bankers used the process mainly to get SpaceX to bid the price up.

Responding to a listener question about whether AST is too late versus Starlink's coming low-band capability, he says Starlink likely won't reach a reasonably competitive MNO service until around 2028-2029, while AST's handset-compatible infrastructure and MNO spectrum access already exist.

On AST's biggest loss and win from the Grain deal: the loss is not having access to the Grain spectrum itself (a 'nice to have, not a need to have'); the biggest win is that the deal squarely locks T-Mobile into AST's camp.

Asked if a T-Mobile announcement is coming soon, he says it's a decent possibility within days or weeks, since any previously planned announcement timeline would likely be pulled forward given the urgency created by today's news.

On AST's competitive advantage versus Amazon and Iridium, he cites AST's technology, patents and already-deployed constellation as hard to replicate, and argues Iridium's roughly 8 MHz of shared uplink/downlink spectrum (time-division duplexed) can never support a broadband service, limiting it to voice, PNT and military use.

Asked whether the telco JV should invest directly in AST, he argues AST should remain neutral and multi-tenanted across all global MNOs rather than being owned by one party, and expects the JV to instead contribute more terrestrial spectrum to AST's network over time.

He closes by saying he plans to add to his AST position that evening and expects it will take the market, including sell-side analysts, days to weeks to fully digest the strategic implications of the SpaceX-Grain deal.

T-Mobile's support and FAQ pages still mention Starlink by name because the carrier is still using the service, but Anpanman expects T-Mobile to continue de-emphasizing the Starlink brand going forward.

In an ideal world for AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, none of them will ever mention AST SpaceMobile by name, since AST is a background wholesale infrastructure provider while the carriers own the customer relationship and billing.

Anpanman calls the T-Mobile/Starlink spectrum deal a huge strategic mistake, because it let Starlink test and iterate its satellites using T-Mobile's spectrum and distribution, setting up Starlink to later become a direct competitor rather than staying a partner.

Anpanman previously thought an AST-T-Mobile MOU or definitive agreement was 'months or quarters' away, but now believes the website change and the signed carrier JV suggest it could come sooner.

Canada is a three-player carrier market (Telus, Bell, Rogers); Anpanman expects AST's Canadian market share to 'asymptotically approach 100%.'

Rogers' CEO recently said that while Starlink is a partner, Rogers is open to working with others; Anpanman reads this as a sign Rogers may move away from Starlink given dissatisfaction with 'intermittent texting and spotty satellite service.'

Anpanman notes Japan's MIC (its FCC equivalent) has been discussing using the Rakuten/AST $1 billion J-LEO constellation for Japan's self-defense forces, including sensing, radar, and connectivity to protect the island.

Anpanman speculates the US is implicitly inviting allies — Canada, Europe, and Japan — into a Golden Dome-style framework by encouraging sovereign constellations built on AST's compatible technology, so allied systems could interoperate with a future US system.

Anpanman argues AST's sovereign constellations for allies like Japan and Europe create compatible, interoperable networks that could support Golden Dome and allied defense cooperation, partly because allied governments are wary of political dependence on Starlink/SpaceX.

Anpanman says AST wants to reach a production capacity of 12 satellites per month, adding 'who knows when that will happen, but they've got the square footage to do it,' citing an expanding facility in Barcelona, an HQ in Belgium, and a constellation flagged in Germany for European operations.

Anpanman speculates, explicitly flagging it as speculation, that AST's large phased arrays could be used for electronic warfare — for example disrupting cellular networks over roughly a 30-mile radius by flooding frequencies with noise, without needing to physically cut communications infrastructure.

Anpanman argues resiliency requires multiple satellite constellations working together rather than a winner-take-all outcome, so that if an adversary like Russia jams one constellation, allied forces have others (AST, Starshield, Iridium, etc.) to fall back on.

Asked whether the State Department announcement was needed for US government approval of the J-LEO contract in Japan, Anpanman clarified the J-LEO contract itself was already awarded to Rakuten and likely doesn't need separate US approval, but the AST-Rakuten joint venture to execute it has not yet been formally inked.

Anpanman argues being named in a joint US-Japan government statement signals AST has support from the US government, likely including the State Department, FCC, and Department of War, positioning AST as a favorable framework for future allied partnerships.

Asked how many more rounds of dilution will be needed given cash burn and limited near-term revenue, Anpanman said, spitballing, he expects 'at least 3 more offerings' before commercial service starts in late 2027 or early 2028, noting delays could require even more.

Anpanman says AST's prior capital raise partly funded expanded production capacity and US government work, and argues that investment 'paid dividends' because Japan subsequently awarded AST $1 billion toward the J-LEO constellation.

Anpanman says he wouldn't be surprised, though he doesn't think it's likely, if the US government eventually took a passive equity or equity-linked stake in AST (on the order of $1 billion), similar to past government investments in MP Materials and Intel, given how strategic space superiority is to the current administration.

Anpanman speculates a US government equity stake could roughly double AST's stock price and significantly lower its cost of capital, effectively making the company 'too big to fail' or de facto government-supported.

Kook says he used TLE orbital-tracking data and AI analysis repeatedly over several days to try to determine whether BB11 was stuck, at one point concluding it probably was, similar to BlueWalker 3's earlier stuck deployment.

Kook relays an alternate theory he saw just before deployment: BB11's slower separation reflected simple Newtonian physics, since BlueBird 12 and 13 had more mass to push off against during stage separation, giving BB11 less velocity and requiring the other satellites to use atmospheric drag to brake and realign spacing for handoff.

Kook, drawing on the book The Kill Chain, argues AST's satellites should be understood as military-grade assets built with large engineering margins and extensive testing, unlike systems that push the envelope with no reserve margin.

Kook credits Abel Avellan's leadership and team for the execution, noting the company now has roughly a million square feet of manufacturing capacity in Midland and, by his count, 13 operating satellites with far more array area than Iridium's constellation.

Kook expects the next AST SpaceMobile launch in roughly 2-3 weeks.

Community analyst Tanner reviewed AST's newly released factory video frame-by-frame, identifying supply-chain changes, new satellite-handling equipment, and BlueBird 25 already visible in the production ring.

Kook speculates AST could have as many as 18 satellites in orbit by around Thanksgiving, with 21 not far behind.

Kook argues retail investors misread AST's prior guidance as a broken promise rather than normal schedule slippage, which he says is universal among hard private-company engineering projects.

Kook says AST is running roughly 2-3 years behind its original timeline, which he still considers remarkable given the scope of the technical challenge.

Kook argues no competitor has the people, prime contractors, proprietary satellite designs, financing, or regulatory approvals to replicate AST's direct-to-cell satellites, citing the difficulty of finding specialized talent in thermal management, ASIC tuning, bus manufacturing, and large ceramic/composite structures.

Citing a sell-side report, Kook says the joint venture structure gives T-Mobile a contractual route to AST SpaceMobile satellite capacity without unwinding its existing Starlink relationship.

Kook predicts a T-Mobile/AST SpaceMobile deal announcement is imminent, saying he feels it could happen within days; he pledges to quit his job if it's announced within the next week, and to reveal a community analyst's identity if no T-Mobile deal happens.

Kook, citing community member Justin Barrett, highlights that T-Mobile has been removing Starlink-related content from its website, which he interprets as preparation to add AST SpaceMobile service.

Kook mocks the Mongolia claim, noting Mongolia has about 3.5 million people and roughly 2 people per square kilometer, arguing it has no bearing on his AST SpaceMobile thesis.

Kook cites a Peter Thiel-backed cattle-monitoring company using an AI model ("Calgorithm") to track roughly a million cows in New Zealand, charging $5-8 per cow per month, as an example of a narrow but deep "vertical" direct-to-cell opportunity that developers could build on AST's horizontal satellite platform.

Kook notes another FCC Special Temporary Authority is keeping testing alive on Grain Management's spectrum, and speculates Grain still needs to decide whether AST SpaceMobile will be its partner.

Kook connects recent FCC filings showing Abel Avellan and other AST executives meeting with the FCC, continued Grain spectrum testing, and increased Ligado docket activity as mutually reinforcing signs that a T-Mobile contract may already be signed or imminent.

Kook says Iridium continues to object loudly in the Ligado spectrum docket, which he interprets as Iridium fearing liability for causing harmful interference once AST SpaceMobile's spectrum use is approved.

Kook, citing research shared by "Alex from Babylon," questions whether 71-year-old Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg has the energy, talent-attraction ability, or innovation experience to make Viasat a credible direct-to-cell competitor, noting several Viasat VPs have recently left and that B. Riley has expressed concern about the company.

Kook argues Viasat lacks a prime contractor and manufacturing capability, and suggests Viasat's actual strategy is to extract a high price from AST for its L-band spectrum rather than build a competing network, likening it to Charlie Ergen's playbook.

Kook, drawing on the book The Kill Chain (which he says underpins Palmer Luckey's strategy at Anduril), argues AST's satellites are relevant military assets because disturbed electromagnetic signals from 5G-type sensing can help detect stealth aircraft, potentially reducing the long-term value of stealth fighters.

Kook notes the revival of the SR-71 "Blackbird" program and a new military unit focused on autonomous drone warfare, arguing both depend on connectivity, positioning/navigation/timing, and sensing capabilities relevant to AST.

Kook criticizes bears who spread FUD around the BlueBird 11 and Batch 3 launches, citing community analysts Anpanman and "another Smith" as having pointed out apparent financial ties between certain bear commentators and Viasat.

Anpanman states unequivocally that the joint venture will not result in a Starlink contract — he argues the JV was actually created to counter Starlink, not to include it.

The JV formalizes pooling of scarce low-band terrestrial spectrum (600-900 MHz), building on AT&T and Verizon's prior contribution of 850 MHz spectrum to AST; Anpanman argues AST is the only operator with a large enough phased array to reuse that spectrum efficiently without interfering with terrestrial networks.

Starlink currently uses T-Mobile's PCS G-block (1.9 GHz); Anpanman expects that agreement to end within the next few months, after which T-Mobile would likely redirect that spectrum toward AST's Block 3 mid-band satellites alongside Ligado spectrum.

The JV states it wants to create opportunities for more satellite operators to compete; Anpanman says this framing is necessary for DOJ/FCC approval but that AST remains the practical fit given spectrum requirements, with Amazon as a conceivable future addition and Starlink excluded.

T-Mobile has no exclusivity; Anpanman speculates that once AST signs a definitive agreement with T-Mobile, T-Mobile may offer both AST and Starlink for some period to satisfy a regulatory 'consumer choice' framing.

AST's 'bent pipe' architecture keeps call routing and network control on the ground (at the MNO's eNodeB), so traffic never leaves the carrier's network; Anpanman says this is uniquely suited to the JV's stated open-standards goal.

Equitas, the Viasat/Space42 joint venture, is proposing the same ground-routed bent-pipe architecture as AST because, in Anpanman's view, it saw AST's commercial traction and is copying the model.

Existing commercial agreements stay in place under the JV: AST's five-year deal with AT&T, a roughly three-year deal with Verizon (Anpanman's own estimate), and Starlink's T-Mobile agreement, which Anpanman says has only a few months left and, per SpaceX's IPO prospectus, can be terminated at any time.

Anpanman rebuts the 'buyer's cartel' criticism of the JV: AST's agreements split end-consumer pricing 50/50 with AT&T and Verizon, so the carriers are financially incentivized to charge more for a valuable product, not to push prices down.

Anpanman argues that even if per-user pricing fell due to competition, lower prices would likely increase penetration (basic supply and demand), an effect he says bears ignore; he also notes satellite service is used intermittently, not continuously, allowing capacity to be oversubscribed like a terrestrial cell tower.

Anpanman's guess is that a T-Mobile memorandum of understanding with AST could come at any time, similar to the prior AT&T/Verizon MOUs, but a definitive commercial agreement probably won't arrive until after AST's beta service is live, though it could also come sooner.

Anpanman believes Thorson takes over the Chief Commercial Officer title from longtime executive Chris Ivory, who will now spend most of his time on the defense side of the business as CEO of AST Defense.

AST's website language reportedly changed from '60 operators' to 'over 60 operators'; Anpanman guesses (citing a community member, Justin) this reflects now counting T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom among its partners.

AST also recently hired an unnamed IP attorney with engineering and space background; Anpanman speculates this hints at increased focus on the company's patent/IP business, though he does not believe she has litigation experience and expects AST would outsource any patent litigation to an outside firm.

Anpanman adds that radar and sensing applications using low-band spectrum (600-900 MHz) are underappreciated by the market, drawing an analogy to reports that large phased arrays like Starlink's Starshield can detect stealth aircraft using 2-36 GHz, arguing AST's lower frequencies could do an even better job.

In Europe, Viasat and EchoStar each hold 15x15 MHz of 2 GHz S-band spectrum, both facing possible loss of their allocations in May 2027; one 10x10 MHz block is expected to go to the EU's homegrown IRIS solution, a second 10x10 MHz block is reportedly (per Bloomberg) well-positioned for Satellite Connect Europe (the AST/Vodafone JV with Telefónica, Orange, and eventually Deutsche Telekom), and a third, last 10x10 MHz block remains contested, which Anpanman speculates AST could pursue via its German re-flagging.

Anpanman estimates Viasat generates only around $60 million of revenue off its 15x15 MHz European S-band (used for airline broadband) and EchoStar around $20 million off its allocation via an IoT network, arguing this underutilization favors reallocation away from them.

On IoT revenue, Anpanman says Street analysts generally value ASTS based solely on consumer mobile handset subscriber uptake; government/defense revenue is treated by some as upside optionality and left out by others, while IoT revenue is essentially unmodeled.

Asked about the next big catalyst, Anpanman cites a T-Mobile deal, the Grain Management decision, and confirmation of a Golden Dome-related contract; he estimates ASTS would have been up 6-7% on the JV news alone if not for the same-day B. Riley downgrade, with the stock instead closing up only 2.3%.

Asked what price Abel Avellan would sell the company at, Anpanman says he doesn't believe Avellan is a near-term seller even at $200-400 per share, given the company is on the cusp of commercialization and the stock is undervalued relative to fundamentals.

On Iridium's FCC filing opposing AST, Anpanman frames it as 'lawfare' by CEO Matt Desch to slow down competitors (also used against SpaceX/EchoStar), after years of underinvestment via dividends and buybacks that led Iridium to agree to be acquired by Rocket Lab.

Anpanman notes an apparent reversal: SpaceX previously argued AST's large satellites pose excess orbital-debris risk due to their size, but he expects SpaceX to drop that argument now that its own new V3/AI-orbital-compute satellites are comparably large.

On New Glenn, Anpanman says AST has multiple launches booked plus options and is Blue Origin's 'marquee customer' outside Amazon, with Blue Origin owing AST a launch after the BlueBird 7 loss; AST will not fly on New Glenn again until Blue Origin completes additional successful commercial missions.

Asked whether AST would hold off on commercial agreements until the JV is approved, Anpanman says no, especially for T-Mobile, given competitive urgency from Starlink; he expects management to sign and execute agreements when it makes commercial sense rather than waiting or rushing.

On J-LEO, Anpanman says the award itself is 'pretty much granted,' with the key remaining catalyst being formal announcement of the joint venture structure with Rakuten.

On BlueBirds 14, 15 and 16, Anpanman says community due diligence indicates they arrived at Cape Canaveral the day before this episode and are being integrated onto a Falcon 9; he personally guesses (explicitly flagged as speculation) a launch around October 21-23, 2026, with a possible second batch launching around November 7-9, 2026.

Anpanman speculates the company delayed the shipment PR by a few days, possibly to edit video content for viewers, or for safety reasons — to avoid giving short sellers, competitors, or state actors exact timing information.

Anpanman says the company learns from each unfolding: the first two Block 2 satellites unfolded the fastest ever, while Bluebird 11 took longer, though still within the roughly 50-day range of prior satellites.

Anpanman argues the company should keep unfolding process details proprietary, comparing it to Starlink not disclosing issues with its satellite versions, to avoid giving valuable information to competitors or state actors like China.

Anpanman speculates the BB14-16 shipment delay reflects the company finding and fixing a flaw before shipping rather than rushing satellites out the door to hit a timeline.

Anpanman attributes recent day-to-day stock swings to the 30-year Treasury rate matching its highest level since roughly 2002, plus the ongoing war, rather than company-specific news.

He notes Rocket Lab and Planet Labs trade in the same daily pattern as ASTS, and that space stocks broadly tracked the Russell 2000 intraday.

Even with two pieces of good news today (the shipment and the unfolding), the stock was up a lot intraday before closing flat to down, which Anpanman attributes to the broader rate environment rather than manipulation.

Abel and Scott Wisniewski have reportedly been in Washington, D.C. for some time; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also spoke in the same timeframe, suggesting possible additional meetings still to be learned about.

Anpanman names a definitive commercial agreement with T-Mobile as a major catalyst still ahead that he expects would produce a big stock reaction even in a weak macro environment.

Anpanman expects the Falcon 9 launch carrying this batch of satellites as early as October 21-23, 2026, possibly slipping to the end of October; he pushes back on claims that satellites not yet appearing on SpaceX's manifest is bearish, noting satellites are shipped for processing before a manifest slot is confirmed.

He defends Katzi and Cook as six-year AST holders who freely share due diligence without running subscription services, and discloses he personally was down about 85% at the 2024 lows.

Anpanman argues critics should simply sell if they truly believe management are frauds, rather than stay invested while attacking the team, recalling past calls in 2023-2024 for Abel to be fired.

He describes Abel as effectively living at the Midland facility, closely overseeing production to prevent mistakes, framing the company's philosophy as 'measure twice, cut once' rather than a fail-fast approach.

He contrasts AST's approach of fixing flaws even if it delays launches against the risk of shipping flawed satellites, noting a batch of three satellites on a Falcon 9 costs roughly $70-80 million.

Anpanman says each composite ring must withstand force equivalent to supporting a Statue of Liberty or a fully loaded 737/747 since they stack and bear launch loads; he recalls the first composite rings failed structurally, possibly around January 2026 (uncertain on exact timing).

Block 2 satellites also added a tail section with additional solar power generation, with speculation about possible additional phased arrays on it.

Anpanman says Block 2 (current generation) is targeting up to 200 Mbps, versus roughly 140 Mbps he attributes to SpaceX's Starlink V2 direct-to-cell satellites; spectrum optimization could add 3x to 11x further improvement per prior company guidance.

AST is working in parallel on Block 3 mid-band BlueBirds, which Anpanman guesses (spitballing) could begin launching 'early next year,' with Block 4 and Block 5 already on the drawing board.

Anpanman advises sizing a volatile, high-upside stock like ASTS to what an investor can emotionally tolerate, suggesting 5-10% of a portfolio rather than larger allocations for most retail investors.

He discloses his own position is larger than typical due to capital-gains tax considerations and long-term conviction, but keeps options and leveraged ETF exposure to under 3% of his portfolio.

Anpanman says much of the recent investor frustration traces to people holding options or trading on margin, disclosing his own options expired worthless in August after a speculative bet.

He argues that even if Bluebird shipments and unfolding had happened faster, it would not have meaningfully changed stock performance during this macro-driven period, since ASTS has traded roughly in line with peers like Rocket Lab.

He says that after a mediated settlement in June 2025 among AST, Ligado, Viasat, and Inmarsat, Viasat and Inmarsat had 'seller's remorse' by August 2025 and tried to legally exit the agreement.

Anpanman says critic Stuart 'Lucky Stewie' Taylor, a self-described distressed Viasat investor, never tweeted about AST until shortly after Viasat/Inmarsat's attempt to exit the settlement, and has since focused heavily on attacking Katzi.

Anpanman mentions an 'updated' MDA Shield IQ award with interesting implications that some Space Mob members are investigating, saying Scott Wisniewski is expected to disclose more soon.

He closes by reiterating caution around leverage: avoid margin, treat options as a drug that can be dangerous, and expect fundamentals to show through once rates stabilize.

These plans don't have to be M&A-specific; boards may also adopt them when the company is engaged in strategic-partner discussions for joint ventures or strategic investment, to keep executives indifferent to whether talks end in a partnership or a sale.

From his hedge fund event-driven investing background, Anpanman says 8-K filings with double-trigger change-in-control provisions were, in his experience, a higher-than-average signal (not a guaranteed one) that a company would later be found in a sale process or announce a deal, sometimes weeks or months afterward; dedicated event-driven research firms track exactly this kind of filing.

Anpanman ran an AI-assisted analysis of AST's prior cycle of similar filings and concluded today's action is off-cycle -- it doesn't line up with the normal timing when such incentive packages would typically go up for board approval -- which he says is peculiar even though it doesn't definitively prove something strategic is happening.

Anpanman puts the probability of Abel selling the company as very low right now, believing AST is at an early stage of executing a large opportunity; he'd view it as more plausible later, once several satellite shells are deployed and the subscriber base is much larger.

Abel's high-vote Class C stock gives him effective voting control, so even if a party like Google offered '$300' for the company, Abel could reject it unilaterally and there would be nothing shareholders or activists could do about it.

Anpanman sequences it as: Ozzy Ramos hired in early August, Adriana Cisneros buys shares a month later, and roughly two months after the hire the change-of-control severance plan is adopted -- a pattern he finds noteworthy even though he can't say it proves an imminent deal.

Anpanman says AST is having strategic discussions with MNOs including T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom -- additions that would be game-changing, giving AST 100% of the US market via T-Mobile and locking up Europe's big four carriers via Deutsche Telekom, on top of existing AT&T and Verizon relationships.

He raises open questions about the structure of a possible US joint venture among AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile -- whether spectrum rights or infrastructure get contributed, whether AST's future grain management spectrum could be folded in, and whether the JV would separately capitalize or invest in AST -- saying these details should become clearer in the coming months, possibly before year-end, given that MNOs are said to be moving faster due to competitive pressure from SpaceX.

He argues SpaceX and Tesla's vertical integration threatens essentially every other player, and predicts Blue Origin and Amazon will eventually combine (similar to SpaceX/X) since AI data centers in space and direct-to-device capability via Amazon's Globalstar spectrum would create obvious synergies with AST's large satellites; he notes AST is one of Blue Origin's biggest launch customers.

For Google, he cites its Android OS/MNO relationships, an Eric Schmidt connection to Relativity Space's upcoming first launch, and Google's existing work with Planet Labs as reasons a deal or deep partnership with AST could make strategic sense.

For Meta, he points to Mark Zuckerberg's long-standing goal of connecting the unconnected (correcting himself that the high-altitude-glider project was Meta's, not Google's Project Loon balloons) and Meta's Muse AI assistant and device ambitions as strategic rationale; he notes Kook has tweeted this would be his own bet for a partner.

Asked about a possible Blue Origin reverse merger, Anpanman says he 'would not rule it out': Blue Origin could either raise cash to acquire AST while staying private, or do a stock-for-stock deal with Blue Origin as the surviving entity, which would take Blue Origin public overnight.

On whether a Meta acquisition would raise data-sovereignty concerns (Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India, African markets, defense customers), Anpanman says AST's existing joint-venture structure -- where the local country/JV retains a kill switch, control and operations centers, and constellation ownership in its region, with the acquirer only leasing capacity elsewhere -- could still address the issue, even if less cleanly than today.

Asked whether a merger structure could still leave Abel effectively in control, Anpanman says only if it's a strategic investment where AST stays public; in an outright acquisition, a buyer would need to structure something to satisfy Abel. He also argues an MNO like AT&T or American Tower likely couldn't acquire AST outright, since it would break AST's neutrality with the other carriers -- though the growing Starlink threat could change that calculus.

On a possible takeout price, Anpanman estimates AST's market cap at about $23 billion and enterprise value at about $25 billion; he ballparks the Ligado spectrum as worth roughly $15-20 billion once deployed and unencumbered, implying the rest of the business (defense, MNO relationships, ~3,900 patents, and satellites already on orbit) is being valued at only about $5 billion today.

He cites sector comps for spectrum-driven re-ratings: Globalstar traded around $15-20 before being acquired by Amazon for roughly 4x that (low $80s); Iridium traded around $15-20 in 2025 before Rocket Lab paid 'over $50'; Viasat traded at $8-10 before the AST-Ligado deal, later rising as high as the $90s and now around $75.

With the stock at about $61, Anpanman says he isn't expecting anyone to pay $200 today, but suggests AST/Abel could entertain a sale once production is humming, a few launches have succeeded, and the path to commercial service is clear -- he floats the stock needing to reach roughly $100-125 first, plus a large premium, and separately suggests Abel would want something 'well north of' a much higher figure before selling (exact figure unclear in the recording).

Asked whether recent capital-raise language about vertical integration of launch capability points toward a Blue Origin reverse merger, Anpanman says he followed up with the company and doesn't believe AST wants to acquire a launch company; he thinks any such M&A would more likely be small tuck-ins (e.g., semiconductor, solar, or composites capability) rather than buying launch capability outright.

BlueBirds 14, 15, and 16 hit an issue during testing; the company fixed it and retested, which took additional time, and the timeline also shifted around the October 1st crewed Falcon 9/Dragon mission. Per Space Mob due diligence, Anpanman says 14, 15, and 16 are now in process and being shipped.

Anpanman says AST is roughly a month behind its most recently updated production/launch schedule, though roughly six months behind an older schedule; he notes Blue Origin's launch pad explosion means AST didn't actually need to hit 6 satellites/month by now, since it doesn't currently have Blue Origin capacity to fill, calling this an unintended silver lining.

He says he expects to see a launch in October and possibly two launches in November, though he frames this as uncertain ('who knows').

Referencing a satellite referred to in the recording as 'Blue Origin 11' (likely BlueBird 11), Anpanman says it now looks like its antenna has unfolded, but says he isn't sure whether an earlier delay reflected a controlled testing process to gather additional data or an actual issue that needed to be worked through.

Kook's most likely explanation for BB11's status is that AST had 'some difficulty' deploying the satellite's array, but stresses 'difficulty doesn't mean disaster.'

Community member Katzy has offered competing theories involving satellite station-keeping tests and satellite spacing that could also explain the unusual TLE data.

Kook lays out three scenarios for BB11: (1) full successful unfurl; (2) the satellite is stuck partially deployed, functioning at roughly Block 1 satellite power, potentially fixable via techniques like shaking the satellite or running it through thermal cycles; (3) the satellite is 'busted' and must be deorbited, an estimated $25-30 million loss against AST's roughly $25 billion company value.

Kook says the TLE data's B-star curvature 'looks suspicious' in a way consistent with successful deployment, but cautions he isn't certain and plans further analysis suggested by Katzy.

Kook expects AST's next satellite batch to ship 'now or Monday,' contingent on the Falcon 9 launch queue clearing behind SpaceX's crewed Crew Dragon missions, which take priority at Cape Canaveral.

Kook says maxed-out short utilization often precedes a momentum shift once the 'traffic jam' -- both the Falcon 9 backlog and stock complacency -- clears.

Kook cites falling Reddit posting activity and collapsing implied volatility in ASTS options as signs of market complacency, noting neither predicts direction but both are useful sentiment gauges he tracks alongside community member Katzy.

Kook speculates that Mag-7-scale companies could eventually bypass mobile network operators and terrestrial 5G networks entirely, connecting AI devices directly via satellite, given big tech's preference to vertically integrate rather than rely on slower partners.

Using the AI tool Grok, Kook estimates AI voice-assistant traffic runs about 30-150 kilobits per second (20-120 MB per hour), versus roughly 3 GB per hour for video streaming, concluding satellite bandwidth like ASTS should handle AI use cases easily -- a hypothesis he flags as unverified but potentially significant for AST's total addressable market.

Kook notes Canada is looking to diversify away from reliance on SpaceX.

Kook argues the space industry, including Blue Origin (recently raising money at a roughly $130 billion valuation) and AST SpaceMobile, is becoming 'the next Mag-7,' drawing a historical parallel to 20th-century shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

Kook criticizes competitor Equitus for announcing plans to have direct-to-cell satellites in orbit by 2028, noting the company has not built, funded, obtained regulatory approval for, secured customers for, or arranged launch for any such satellites.

Implied volatility on ASTS options has struck or matched its near all-time low from 2023, at around 70% — very low for a high-risk, high-growth company like AST, even though 70% would be extremely high implied volatility for a blue-chip S&P company.

Sentiment among retail investors on Reddit and X is near an all-time low, though not as bad as when the stock traded around $2; a number of long-term holders have grown frustrated with what they perceive as reduced company communication after a highly communicative July and August.

He pushes back on accusations that management is 'lying' or 'fraudulent' when timelines slip, comparing it to Tesla's 'Production Hell,' which lasted over 12 months without the company intending to deceive anyone — difficult engineering goals simply take longer than planned.

He argues that if near-term uncertainties — Bluebird 11 deployment, batch 3 and batch 4 shipment, and launch — resolve positively in a short window, the combination of washed-out sentiment, low implied volatility, and high short interest could trigger a rapid rerating in the stock price.

He cautions against comparing ASTS's stock performance to other space stocks like Rocket Lab just because they trade with some sector correlation, noting each company is executing its own distinct plan and psychological pressure to 'keep up' with other tickers is misplaced.

He expects more details on Golden Dome to emerge soon, and expects the 800 MHz Grain spectrum selection decision (7 MHz by 7 MHz uplink and downlink, 14 MHz total nationwide) by early November, though he guesses the market will hear about it sooner than that.

He guesses the US telco joint venture (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile) will be formally inked before the end of 2026, given competitive pressure from Starlink, though it could take longer; he says AST is in active discussions with T-Mobile in addition to its existing AT&T and Verizon relationships.

He mentions the JLEO joint venture with Rakuten in Japan is still in discussions and has not been formalized, but could be announced any day.

Despite some speculation of trouble with Bluebird 11's deployment, community trackers Katzi and Toad indicate the satellite appears to have successfully deployed, with more information expected in the coming days.

He argues losing even Bluebird 11 would not be an 'extinction-level' event for the company, unlike a hypothetical BlueWalker 3 failure in 2022 would have been when AST had limited capital, resources and time; losing one of the five Block 1 satellites would have been bad but survivable, and now with roughly 48 satellites in the production pipeline, losing one is immaterial.

Over the weekend before this recording, Blue Origin appeared to be stacking a new tower, suggesting the company's year-end launch target may actually be achievable; Anpanman had previously expected further delay given typical space-industry slippage.

He explains Blue Origin has used the post-pad-explosion downtime to build additional first- and second-stage boosters, so once the first couple of commercial launches succeed, launch cadence should scale quickly from 4 Bluebirds per launch toward 6 and then 8.

He warns that options in a high-beta, delay-prone stock like ASTS are generally a losing game over time for long options holders (calls or puts), comparable to a casino, because you must get both the catalyst timing and the stock price reaction right.

He argues leveraged ETFs like ASTX are dangerous specifically during choppy, range-bound periods (as opposed to strong unilateral trends), because compounding decay erodes value over time; he says such products should never be a core holding.

He draws a parallel to the stock's move from about $20 to $55 in roughly 1.5-2 weeks around June 2024 (following a period of investor frustration at $17-18), followed by a further run to about $100, arguing the current range-bound period could similarly precede a sharp rerating.

Asked whether AST will meet its beta service target of 25 satellites by end of year, Anpanman guesses probably not, though he thinks beta service could start with as few as 20 satellites; he cares more about production and launch cadence (e.g., batch 3 and batch 4 shipping within 1-3 weeks of each other) than the exact date.

He says once production and launch cadence become visible on the path to 45 satellites and beyond, he expects the stock to 'really work,' with T-Mobile as potentially the single biggest catalyst — bigger than Verizon's 2024 investment — because it would lock up the entire US market; he speculates the stock 'could double' on a T-Mobile announcement, though he's not certain.

He notes Starlink's Direct-to-Cell service would not exist without T-Mobile providing its 1900 MHz spectrum for development and testing, underscoring why a T-Mobile deal with AST would be strategically significant.

A listener modeled AST launching once every 1-2 months across 10 booked launches (8 Falcon 9, 2 New Glenn), which would not reach 45 satellites until early 2028; Anpanman responds that he expects commercial service around mid-2027 at the earliest given likely delays.

He argues the exact commercial service date (mid-2027 versus late 2028) won't matter much once a steady launch cadence is visible, drawing a parallel to Starlink Direct-to-Cell, which targeted beta service in 2023 but didn't launch until late 2024, with commercial service not rolling out until mid-2025.

Asked about Meta rumors, Anpanman confirms AST is working with Meta to optimize its applications (including wearable devices like Muse) to run over AST's narrowband satellite constellation, similar to what Meta did with Starlink's Direct-to-Cell service; he says Meta could make a strategic investment but would not acquire AST outright.

Among potential long-term strategic acquirers, he views Google as the most logical fit given it owns the Android mobile operating system and partners rather than competes with MNOs; he also names Amazon, Blue Origin, and Apple as more speculative possibilities.

He does not believe CEO Abel Avellan is looking to sell the company, characterizing AST as Avellan's 'magnum opus' aimed at bringing connectivity to underdeveloped markets, consistent with Avellan's background from Venezuela.

Asked how confident he is in a T-Mobile partnership arriving soon, Anpanman says he has no evidence on exact timing but notes talks are reportedly going well, pointing to Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile's parent) already testing with AST as a signal that T-Mobile could follow; he does not commit to a by-year-end timeline given Starlink's competitive pace.

Kook recalls being similarly distracted in May-June 2025, chasing crypto reverse mergers, right before ASTS rallied from about $23 to $50; he frames his current crypto distraction as a similar 'rock bottom' signal for ASTS sentiment.

AST SpaceMobile attended the Paris satellite conference this week, and Kook expected more news (definitive agreements, government contracts, etc.) given the company's recent momentum, but there was almost nothing announced, which he finds peculiar.

Kook contrasts this with an unnamed founder of another portfolio company who originally had an office on the factory floor but later moved to an upscale office area (he alludes to something like Mayfair) far from operations, which Kook says is a warning sign of founder disconnection from reality.

Kook says he cannot personally confirm or rule out theories (attributed to community member 'Catsy,' with related analysis from 'Toad Sommelier') that Bluebird 11 is undergoing deliberate station-keeping testing; he's tried to replicate the analysis and remains genuinely uncertain.

Using his own historical tracking script, Kook does not see the dramatic change in V* (velocity/orbital parameter) that typically signals antenna unfurling, so he believes Bluebird 11 has not yet unfurled; he does see a satellite cruising nominally, within the deployment window of prior satellites.

Kook has observed a slight difference in mean-motion comparisons between Bluebird 11 versus Bluebirds 12 and 13, though he says this could simply reflect that 12 and 13 have already deployed; he does not know for certain.

Kook says it's easy to construct a plausible narrative that AST is testing station-keeping on Bluebird 11 because future (especially mid-band) satellites will operate at different altitudes and need to understand behavior under different power loads, but stresses this is not confirmed.

Kook argues that AST's investor relations has little it can disclose about Bluebird 11 and that any voluntary disclosure risks triggering a class-action lawsuit, so investors frustrated by the lack of transparency should instead ask themselves whether they trust the management team.

Kook notes Rocket Lab's stock currently shows what he calls 'perfect correlation' to ASTS, and suggests that investors who don't trust Abel Avellan's team, but just want exposure to the theme, should simply buy Rocket Lab (and trust Peter Beck) instead.

Kook describes frequent personal experience with 'one bar' cell coverage (e.g., dropping his kids at school, at the beach) as a tangible illustration of the coverage-gap opportunity AST is targeting, even in developed, populated areas.

Kook cites Vodafone executive Tim Boddy, vice chairman of Satellite Connect Europe, distinguishing the '1% problem' (no coverage at all) from the 'one-bar problem' (coverage holes within an existing network), and relays Anpanman's estimate that the one-bar problem represents 20-30% of the total addressable market.

Kook says he still has open questions about exactly how gray-area/one-bar coverage will be monetized — e.g., a day pass or weekly pass versus being folded into the broader hybrid network architecture (which he thinks is the better answer) — but believes strong consumer value generally finds a way to monetize.

Viasat launched its 'Equatus' joint venture, which it says has a binding contract, but Kook notes Viasat is still trying to select a prime contractor; Equatus aims to build a neutral, shared space-and-ground network that multiple mobile operators can use while keeping their own spectrum and customers, similar in concept to AST's business model.

Kook argues that constellations outsourced to prime contractors like MDA or Boeing historically have mostly failed, or survived only after emerging from bankruptcy, because of budget overruns, delays, and inability to iterate; he contrasts this with AST's vertical integration.

Kook currently views Equatus as more of a 'paper constellation' and speculates it could be a tactic similar to EchoStar's — talking a big game to drive up the value of Viasat's spectrum ahead of potentially dismantling parts of the company — though he says he would revisit this view if Equatus becomes a credible challenger.

Kook says the Paris conference reinforced a trend of increasing sensitivity around sovereignty, particularly in defense, with Europe rearming for reasons Kook views as historically ominous (he compares it to the Maginot Line) but unlikely to reverse.

Kook predicts that once the U.S. demonstrates its own sovereign space-based defense capabilities, other regions — including EU member states and Asian countries like Japan, Korea, and Singapore, which face regional security threats — will feel pressure to develop similar sovereign direct-to-device capability, though coordinating among many separate countries will be difficult.

Kook says Satellite Connect Europe and the still-to-be-announced J-LEO joint venture (with Rakuten in Japan) show AST's sovereign-structuring approach could let other countries get American-scale technology while retaining control, though whether AST will be seen as a credible, non-excluded partner globally remains an open question.

Kook says AST has a massive backlog of satellites in production and is not slowing down, pointing to continued Antonov cargo flights bringing equipment and supplies into Midland as evidence of parallel production paths still running.

Kook likens the launch industry to poker: AST holds cards in the form of satellite cargo backlog, while launch providers hold cards in the form of limited (but not zero, and not permanently zero) launch capacity; neither side reveals its full hand, including on when Blue Origin will return.

Kook expects AST to be launching satellites in small batches ('onesies and twosies') on Falcon 9 for a while longer, with a much more scaled launch campaign coming in 2027 once more cargo and launch capacity are available.

Kook believes AI data centers in space are largely a 'solved' problem for the highest-value workloads (military, government, and other premium compute), though he caveats that the cost curve to serve lower-value, mass-market compute cheaply has not been solved and it would be naive to think space-based compute will obviate terrestrial data centers soon.

Kook draws an analogy to Tesla's FSD development, where Elon Musk scaled camera-based self-driving before the technology was fully cost-competitive, arguing that space-based AI compute will similarly start with high-value use cases and build out supply chain/R&D from there, driven by advantages like simpler cooling, no water constraints, and more abundant sunlight in space.

Kook relays a comment from community member 'Dave' that Rocket Lab has finished its at-the-market (ATM) equity offering, which Kook says had likely been acting as a supply-driven headwind pinning both Rocket Lab's and, by correlation, ASTS's stock price.

Kook speculates that ASTS and Rocket Lab (along with Voyager and Redwire) share an unusual stock correlation, and that on a recent Friday both stocks were pushed down toward large open-interest options strike lines ($60 for both, $65 for Rocket Lab), which he suspects let market makers avoid assignment and keep options premium.

Kook notes Blue Origin's New Glenn is expected back on the launch pad soon, roughly since the catastrophic explosion the company suffered back in May; Blue Origin has discussed a long-term vision of launching New Glenn up to 100 times per year, which Kook estimates would be equivalent to more than 250-300 Falcon 9 launches.

Kook expects a large amount of new launch capacity coming online over the next several years from Starship, ULA, Rocket Lab, Relativity, and Japanese launch providers, and likens future launch providers to Aristotle Onassis-style oil tanker magnates who will profit from an inflection in demand for the 'cargo' (satellites) they move, including for space-based AI applications.

Anpanman agrees with a JPMorgan view that if the Fed had cut rates or stayed flat instead of hiking, markets would have reacted negatively on fears the Fed isn't serious about inflation, requiring even more restrictive action later.

Anpanman says negative sentiment has spiked broadly across nearly every high-beta stock in the market, not just AST SpaceMobile, citing Rocket Lab, neo-cloud companies, and quantum computing names as also facing retail anger.

Anpanman says AST SpaceMobile stock has ranged as high as $133 and as low as about $50, and argues that volatility is typical of every high-beta, high-growth momentum name he's invested in, not unique to AST.

Anpanman states that if forced to choose between a company focused on execution versus one that is more promotional/marketing-driven, he would choose the execution-focused company, describing AST's DNA as not naturally promotional (though that could change over time).

Anpanman notes Elon Musk projected in 2017 that Starship would land humans on Mars by 2022; that timeline is now roughly 4-6 years behind, but he says SpaceX investors aren't upset because they understand the difficulty of the problem.

Anpanman says he believes AST has composite rings delivered through at least number 23, and possibly higher, though he is not fully certain of the exact count.

Anpanman speculates that a shipment described as 'imminent' was delayed because a satellite likely failed final testing, requiring a fix and a multi-week retest; he argues shipping a satellite with a known issue risking it being 'bricked' in space would be far worse than a delay.

Anpanman says BlueBird 11 appears to be undergoing an orbital raise and may be flown in a 'bar configuration' with its antenna folded before being opened later, as AST tests different deployment processes and flight conditions.

Anpanman notes deployment-to-launch timing has varied: some recent Bluebirds unfolded quickly (deployment time fell from about 50 days to as low as 20 days), while BlueBird 11 is taking longer, which he attributes to AST testing different processes rather than a problem.

Anpanman argues AST deliberately does not disclose these deployment-process learnings publicly because they are competitively sensitive information relevant to other companies pursuing the same direct-to-device opportunity.

Anpanman says AST issued a production-update PR (covering the 48-satellite pipeline and new Antonov ring deliveries) and was criticized anyway by people wanting different news, specifically updates on Bluebird 11 and satellite shipments, illustrating a 'damned if you do' dynamic.

Anpanman pushes back on claims that AST management lied, arguing space companies set aspirational public goals shared with employees, suppliers, and launch providers, and that missing an aspirational goal by 10-15% is good performance while missing by 50% 'is probably the norm' in the sector.

Anpanman argues investors should distinguish between what a company said before an unforeseen external event (like the Blue Origin launchpad explosion) versus after it, since a major driver of AST's 2026 satellite-count plan depended on New Glenn.

Anpanman notes many new anonymous negative accounts were created as recently as June-August 2026, implying coordinated or incentivized negative posting.

Anpanman says heavy exposure to social media platforms like X can measurably shift a person's thinking and mental state, describing negativity as self-reinforcing ('negativity begets negativity') and urging listeners to reflect on their own posting behavior.

Beyond satellite shipments, Anpanman points to ongoing hiring, expanding production floor space, and regulatory progress in the US, Brazil, Japan, and Europe as evidence AST continues executing in parallel.

Anpanman explains executives are more likely to prioritize responding to large institutional holders (e.g., a $500 million position) over individual retail investors with a few thousand shares, simply due to time constraints.

Kook describes Amerito as a credible, well-regarded investor who was early on Tesla, Bitcoin, and AST SpaceMobile, and characterizes his tone (via an AI summary) as somber, analytical, and respectful rather than hostile toward the company.

Amerito concluded, using physics/spectrum/spectral-efficiency reasoning, that ASTS is not a substitute for dense urban terrestrial capacity — a conclusion Kook says he agrees with.

Amerito's model: gross nominal equity value of $210 by 2036, discounted back 12 years at a 10% fixed hurdle rate, producing a target price of about $68.

Kook argues the flaw is duration risk: a discount rate should reflect nominal interest rate minus growth, and as a high-growth, de-risking company, ASTS's appropriate discount rate should fall toward something like 5% rather than stay fixed at 10%, which would sharply raise the implied price given convexity in long-duration assets.

Kook says Amerito is not bearish on the company itself — he still models $210 of value — and that his own critique of academic DCF modeling isn't personal, describing academic financiers as generally poor at translating models into actual investment returns.

Kook argues ASTS is like a limited-run Porsche or Ferrari rather than a mass-market Toyota: it offers the highest-value connectivity in the market but isn't meant to serve everyone in a dense city simultaneously.

In an emergency (Kook cites his in-laws' experience during 9/11, when the cellular network in New York crashed), remaining satellite capacity would prioritize emergency voice/text and critical infrastructure over entertainment use, with capacity segmented by willingness to pay.

High-value affinity groups (e.g., high rollers, portfolio managers needing guaranteed connectivity) will pay a premium for guaranteed access, while mass-market data allowances remain limited due to constrained system capacity.

Kook discusses investor Ron Baron's simple, big-picture buy-and-hold investing style (citing Baron's long-held Tesla position) as a model for evaluating large secular themes like ASTS rather than building detailed discounted cash flow models.

Kook argues that scaling something hard for the first time (as ASTS is doing) inevitably produces setbacks, but that once a company like ASTS establishes itself with global MNOs, it becomes very difficult for a later entrant to break in, since no competitor would risk a $3-4 billion, 7-10-year bet without guaranteed distribution.

French President Macron has also spoken publicly, which Kook links to Satellite Connect Europe (AST's joint venture with Vodafone), which he says already has the key ingredients in place to serve European consumer connectivity needs.

Kook says leading with one use case (disaster recovery, consumer coverage, or military) tends to naturally expand into the other two as the underlying system scales, creating a collision of demand across use cases that boosts revenue potential.

Kook says his own revenue estimates from that earlier analysis have roughly doubled over the past year given developments including JLEO progress, an anticipated (not-yet-announced) T-Mobile deal, and advances in Satellite Connect Europe.

Kook argues the US market, once effectively locked up by ASTS, becomes a major competitive moat because any rival constellation would have a higher cost basis and would be excluded from the world's most valuable telecom market.

Kook describes a hybrid network architecture concept (attributed to community analyst Katsy) where satellite coverage extends the "tails" of terrestrial network coverage rather than operating as a separate roaming service like Starlink's; AST's approach works in tandem with terrestrial towers rather than as an either/or roam-to-space model.

Kook argues Starlink may be quietly abandoning direct-to-cell (D2C) in favor of AI data centers in space, reasoning that SpaceX's DNA is to control its own destiny rather than act as a wholesale middleware provider to legacy telecoms.

Kook's long-standing view is that Starlink's D2C product was originally a strategic move to starve ASTS of capital and create FUD, rather than a genuine long-term commitment to the direct-to-cell business.

Kook argues Elon Musk's roughly $20 billion S-band spectrum purchase (from a distressed seller) functioned as a low-risk store-of-value trade rather than a firm commitment to D2C, since spectrum is scarce like Bitcoin and could later be resold or repurposed for AI data centers or Tesla.

Kook frames this as vindication of earlier, widely mocked community speculation (referencing what he calls the "Katzi files") that AST's satellites would be used for radar, at a time when the stock traded around $2.

Kook argues space-based sensing and targeting opens new revenue vectors by monetizing satellite capacity over areas with little or no commercial subscriber activity (oceans, adversarial countries), where he models utilization near zero today and marginal cost of added government revenue as effectively zero.

Kook argues AST's satellite capacity, like wireless data plans generally, can be sold multiple times over (oversubscribed) because concurrent usage rates are very low, similar to how a telecom reseller he spoke with oversells data plans against actual usage.

Kook says his own earlier models, which priced capacity per gigabyte based on raw data production, likely understated revenue because they didn't account for the ability to oversell the same capacity many times over.

An unnamed prior expert call estimated satellites would pay for themselves in under six months (maybe three) with a roughly ten-year satellite lifetime; Kook believes this still understates oversubscription potential because the expert used rural cellular-tower multiples as a proxy.

Community analyst Tanner said BlueBirds 20 and 23 are about to get their phased arrays installed and enter final testing.

An analyst referred to as Kevin said the company is well-positioned to build and launch up to BlueBird 25 by the end of the year.

Another Antonov cargo flight arrived this weekend, originating from Germany, with unclear contents; community speculation includes additional composites (usually from India) or additional production machinery for AST's expanding Micron facility.

Kook says the next satellite shipment should begin fairly soon and that the community is monitoring closely for it.

Kook argues this shows MNOs like AT&T are seeking multiple trusted wholesale satellite partners (ASTS for direct-to-cell, Amazon for fixed broadband) rather than relying solely on SpaceX, and speculates it would make sense for Amazon's satellite business and ASTS to eventually combine, potentially alongside Blue Origin.

Sovereignty is going to be a recurring theme for the coming months, not just in communications but launch and anything in space, as countries — not only companies — increasingly view space as a strategic necessity.

Once the $1 billion of government funding is secured, the joint venture can raise additional private debt against it, meaning very little, if any, equity investment is required from AST or Rakuten.

It's unclear whether the constellation will actually reach the full 136 satellites; companies typically file for the outer bound of what they might need for regulatory flexibility, then scale back from there.

He compares the deal structure to a prior Planet Labs arrangement with a Japanese partner for 'Pelican' Earth-observation satellites, where Japan paid for deployment and got dedicated in-country capacity while Planet Labs monetized use outside Japan — he expects a similar structure for J-LEO and for SatCo Europe.

The AST/Rakuten revenue split for satellites used outside Japan could shift from a hypothetical 50/50 down to something like 30/70 or 40/60, but owning 100% of a market at a smaller percentage split is far more valuable than owning a third of a market at 50/50.

Japan's other major carriers — KDDI, NTT Docomo, and SoftBank — could eventually work out a deal with the Rakuten/AST joint venture instead of Starlink, if Rakuten allows it.

Japan is looking to build a sovereign, multi-layer defense and communications network similar to a Golden Dome-style architecture, incorporating AI edge computing and both commercial and defense players, motivated by proximity to China and North Korea.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict was the moment that made governments realize Elon Musk could reportedly turn Starlink connectivity on or off for Ukraine (and Russia) depending on his own views, raising concern about relying on a single, foreign-controlled provider.

He cites the 2025 public falling-out between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, including Musk's remarks tying Trump to the Jeffrey Epstein network, and Musk's threat to pull back support for the space station, arguing this taught even the US government it cannot rely solely on one provider, even an aligned one.

A vertically integrated company with interests spanning Tesla, The Boring Company, and SpaceX/Starlink (plus AI data centers) raises concerns for governments about a single entity becoming too powerful for others to depend on.

Europe currently has 30x30 MHz of 2 GHz S-band spectrum held by EchoStar and Viasat, with licenses expiring in May 2027; he expects the EU to reallocate it into three 10x10 MHz blocks — one for the European IRIS-2 consortium, one for a Europe-based satellite player, and one likely remaining with EchoStar (down from its current 15x15 MHz).

There's a chance, not yet priced in by the market, that AST/Satellite Connect Europe could receive its own independent 10x10 MHz block in the 2 GHz reallocation.

Telecom Italia's Brazilian subsidiary, TIM Brasil, already works with AST; he speculates Telecom Italia itself will eventually sign on with AST in Europe as well.

Vodafone, which recently merged with Three in the UK, already works with AST SpaceMobile, positioning AST rather than Starlink to benefit if UK sovereignty concerns steer the country away from Starlink.

AST's 'bent pipe' architecture keeps data origination and landing within the same country and preserves the MNO's ownership of the customer relationship, billing, and support, which he argues is what sovereignty-minded countries and carriers want.

Amazon still has the option to shift away from a Starlink-like architecture since it hasn't yet launched its own direct-to-device constellation, noting Amazon's existing Globalstar stake uses an older bent-pipe architecture, though he doubts Amazon will adopt AST's model given its business focus on owning the customer and monetizing data.

Starlink's 2022 announcement that it was entering direct-to-device initially made him 'feel pretty down,' but in hindsight Starlink's later pivot toward directly competing with every MNO globally as 'Starlink Mobile' has been 'the best thing to ever happen to AST' by accelerating MNOs' strategic embrace of AST.

He alleges SpaceX used 'lawfare' and regulatory pressure at the FCC to push EchoStar toward eventually selling it spectrum, framing this as an example of SpaceX being the 'biggest bully' from a regulatory standpoint.

AST typically does not issue press releases for early-stage joint-venture negotiations (like the still-unformalized Japan JV) or for routine regulatory filings, reserving PR for when deals reach formal, material milestones.

Berenberg's new research coverage appears to leverage Space Mob community due diligence, similar to how hedge funds have historically tracked regulatory dockets (FCC, DOJ, FTC) themselves.

Berenberg initiated research coverage on AST SpaceMobile last week; he praises the analyst for understanding AST's strategic importance to MNOs and countries, unlike other reports that treat Starlink purely as a competitive threat without acknowledging AST as the countermeasure.

Berenberg modeled a scenario in which AST winning a deal with T-Mobile could add $1.1 billion of EBITDA in 2030; at a 15x EBITDA multiple (which he argues should be higher), that implies roughly $29 per share, about 50% of AST's current stock price.

Berenberg's current model does not yet account for a potential Deutsche Telekom deal, implying further unmodeled upside if additional European carriers sign on.

Addressing concerns that an insider buying stock implies undisclosed material news, he explains a board member can legally buy shares while strategic discussions (e.g., with a prospective MNO partner) are ongoing but have not yet reached the level of definitive-agreement materiality.

There's no confirmed update yet on the shipment of BlueBirds 14 through 16, but there are an estimated 4 to 5 shipping boxes staged in Midland, suggesting the next shipment could be larger than prior batches, possibly arriving as two separate completed batches.

In audience Q&A, he confirmed there will not be a September 2026 launch, citing a SpaceX Falcon 9/Crew Dragon launch-window conflict, and said he expects an October launch, possibly two.

Of BlueBirds 14-16, he believes two satellites are finished and speculates (without confirmation) that one may have an unspecified issue that contributed to missing the September window.

This week, Verizon and T-Mobile are scheduled to speak at Citigroup on Wednesday, with Verizon also appearing at Goldman Sachs that afternoon; on Thursday, AT&T speaks at Citi, T-Mobile at Goldman Sachs, and AT&T at Bank of America — occasions where analysts may ask about AST or Starlink competitive positioning.

Asked how Japan's satellites will be used outside Japan's field of view, he explained Japan will own the satellites (flagged out of Japan), but AST will lease capacity from Japan when the satellites fly over other regions, connect to ground stations elsewhere, and sell that capacity to other MNOs.

He speculates revenue splits in new joint ventures like J-LEO and SatCo Europe could fall to around 30% or 40% for AST, but argues that trade-off would still be more lucrative than a 50/50 split on a much smaller addressable market.

Asked what stops SpaceX from pivoting Starlink to a sovereign-controlled, bent-pipe architecture, he said it's technically possible but argued Starlink's public commitment to a vertically integrated model, plus Elon Musk's political involvement in Europe, has 'poisoned the well' and makes such a reversal unlikely absent a major political shift.

He cites a phrase from the recent drawdown — 'conviction cannot be borrowed' — arguing investors must do their own research, and notes a professional investor batting 51-70% correct, if sized properly, can be considered highly successful.

He recalls a former Loft Orbital co-founder previously said publicly he would short AST to zero if he managed money, illustrating how far sentiment has shifted from 'impossible niche idea' to a service the T-Mobile CEO has called 'table stakes.'

Kook lists possible reasons for the non-deployment: waiting for optimal spacing relative to other BlueBirds, heightened solar activity (which risks electromagnetic discharge or added atmospheric drag during unfurling), a software issue requiring an upload during a satellite pass, or, least likely, a mechanical failure.

Kook's personal belief is that the delay is due to heightened solar activity (a point he says he confirmed by talking with Kevin Shen) combined with reduced Labor Day weekend staffing at the company.

Kook says Cisneros's past stock purchases have historically marked a bottom, and interprets this purchase — coming after ASTS was caught in an August momentum-driven high-beta selloff alongside other space and 'MOMO' stocks — as a deliberate signal to shareholders that positive developments are coming; the stock rose 12% on the news.

Kook argues talent flow is one of the best signals for evaluating a secular growth investment, contrasting Viasat's C-suite departures with strong talent inflow at AST SpaceMobile, which he likens to an exciting company people want to join and get rich from (drawing a comparison to early Tesla's expanding product roadmap).

Kook argues AST SpaceMobile is the 'hyperscaler' of the space industry, alongside SpaceX and, likely, Blue Origin, in a way people have not fully appreciated.

In one single launch, AST SpaceMobile launched 3 satellites with combined square footage double that of the entire Iridium constellation; Iridium spent $3 billion roughly 25 years ago to build that constellation.

Citing community member @TechInvestor, Kook says that in the past couple of months AST SpaceMobile has launched satellite capacity equivalent to 4 Iridium constellations, calling this just the company's 'warmup' despite ongoing production debottlenecking, floor-plan changes, and labor scaling challenges.

Kook calls Starlink a 'red herring,' describing its roughly 650-satellite Direct-to-Cell fleet serving T-Mobile as a minimum-viable, repurposed IoT product rather than a true competitor, intended (in his framing) to drain AST SpaceMobile's capital and investor confidence and claim first-to-commercialization status.

Kook contrasts Starlink's line-of-sight, text-only, outdoor-only service with AST SpaceMobile's technology, which he says enables true indoor connectivity — a distinction later echoed by New Zealand carrier 2degree in discussing AST's beta service.

Kook notes Palmer Luckey (Anduril's founder) is an ASTS investor and that Anduril has a strained relationship with SpaceX and depends on satellite technology for its products, which he says makes an AST-Anduril tie-up plausible.

A radar-related job posting states the program is 'built around a dedicated, minimally modified derivative of ASTS's commercial satellite constellation,' which Kook and community member Tanner read as pointing to a separate, dedicated 'Blackbird' satellite shell for radar/government use, implying a much larger total satellite count than the core commercial constellation.

Kook describes AST SpaceMobile as benefiting from an 'iTunes phenomenon': rather than building market-by-market infrastructure, AST's constellation lets it instantly extend global reach across the many fragmented mobile network operators it has signed, a distribution advantage other connectivity-dependent products (e.g., a connected coffee machine) could leverage.

Kook relays a conversation with a contact he calls 'Battery Commodity,' a former telecom executive, who noted how difficult it has historically been to bundle deals with every MNO worldwide to achieve unified global service — a problem AST SpaceMobile's model is positioned to solve as a distribution layer sitting on top of MNOs.

'Wave 3 Trades' noted that on May 7 the stock was around $65 and considered bleak, before SpaceX-related news reportedly caused the stock to double.

Kook says catalysts he views as potentially market-moving in the near future include J-LEO progress in Japan, further evidence of the European JV as a 'global winner,' and simply another confirmed launch date for T-Mobile-related satellites.

Kook interprets Einhorn's dismissive commentary as a sentiment indicator suggesting the space sector may be near a bottom, comparing it to skepticism seen historically around the Google IPO and SaaS stocks.

Kook cites an interview (shared by 'Fireside Alpha') in which investor Gavin Baker argues that skeptics dismissing space-based data centers as impossible are engaging in armchair criticism, whereas thousands of engineers at SpaceX, Blue Origin, Nvidia, and Google having independently converged on the same technology suggests it is a solved problem.

Kook connects this argument to AST SpaceMobile's own roadmap, noting the company is now adding edge-compute capabilities to its BlueBirds and that commercial signs of this could emerge within 3-9 months.

Citing 'SPAC Bobby,' Kook describes a Berenberg initiation report that models AST SpaceMobile's 2030 numbers with and without T-Mobile as a partner: adding T-Mobile would add roughly $1 billion of EBITDA, taking Berenberg's price target from $92 to $121 using a 15x EBITDA multiple.

Kook says he believes the stock is more likely to eventually trade at 30-40x EBITDA rather than Berenberg's 15x multiple, given the company's growth and durability, though he calls that 'a problem for another day.'

Kook interprets the broad, undifferentiated decline as evidence the summer selloff was driven by a general high-beta momentum unwind across the sector rather than AST SpaceMobile-specific problems like competitive erosion, technology failure, or financing issues.

Kook says he expects updates soon on J-LEO (the Japan sovereign satellite program) and the European JV, and expects new AST SpaceMobile launch dates 'pretty soon.'

Kook says he will keep watching TLE data and expects a possible satellite shipment in the coming week, and notes that by mid-September AST SpaceMobile will be 'within a blink' of Blue Origin's New Glenn returning to the launch pad after its earlier pad explosion caused by a faulty valve.

Kook describes sentiment as rock-bottom ('the Kook Bottom'), noting technical-analysis-driven bearishness has people fearing ASTS could fall to $38, but he personally believes TA's statistical edge is mostly chance rather than a reliable signal.

Comparing ASTS's chart to Rocket Lab's, Kook argues both show the same short-term factor-risk-driven pattern but should diverge over time based on actual company results; he cites Rocket Lab's history of rallying from $5 to $30, pulling back to $17, then rallying again to $48 as an analogue for ASTS's volatile-but-upward trajectory.

He argues this isn't a 'bubble popping' because true bubbles are mass hysterias with widespread buy-in that last a long time; by contrast this move felt short and narrow, more like sawtooth price discovery than a bubble.

He notes a chart posted by @Wave3Trades showing ASTS, Rocket Lab, Redwire, and Planet Labs all forming the same 'descending wedge' pattern; he says he ran it through an AI tool which called it moderately bullish but adds he doesn't trust AI/TA chart-reading to be reliable.

He speculates that by year-end the company could plausibly have around 25 satellites in orbit, versus the earlier 45-satellite target, framing 45 as a number he never took literally ('45 was always this fake number').

Kook says his professional background working with private growth companies makes him largely dismissive of near-term guidance misses, arguing that companies executing something never done before (like ASTS) should not be judged the way Wall Street judges mature companies like Walmart.

He argues delays in satellites 15/16 likely reflect rigorous testing rather than problems, and that catching issues on the ground is preferable to failures in space.

Citing Anpanman, Kook says 1-bar gray-zone coverage accounts for 25% to 30% of MNO terrestrial coverage, a much larger addressable market than the roughly 1% 'no coverage at all' figure often cited from FCC data.

Kook believes ASTS is unlikely to buy the spectrum for cash outright and more likely to use a structure similar to the Ligado deal, potentially with the MNO joint venture as the counterparty that acquires the spectrum before conveying it to ASTS, avoiding a dilutive equity raise.

Sell-side firm Clear Street forecasts AST could generate $7 billion of revenue by 2034; Kook thinks this figure is too low and that the true number could scale into the tens of billions.

He compares ASTS's roughly 2x current revenue multiple to AT&T's approximate 2.6x revenue multiple, arguing it seems improbable for a high-growth company with defensive moats to trade cheaper than a legacy telecom, implying the stock should re-rate higher.

He draws an analogy to underestimating Google's 2004 opportunity, saying ASTS could similarly be underappreciated by Wall Street today given SpaceX competition concerns, but that MNO commercial advantages give him confidence in eventual large revenue outcomes and 10-20x stock upside.

Japan is seeking to increase H3 rocket launch frequency to 6-8 per year 'to chase SpaceX'; Kook speculates this may not be a coincidence given the J-LEO program with Rakuten and AST.

Blue Origin remains grounded following its earlier pad explosion, but Kook notes it's already been about three months and speculates the company could be back on the pad around December, citing David Limp's public updates.

He says this compute/data-center opportunity is 'non-zero' optionality on top of AST's core business, and while not his base case, it's possible the thesis could eventually pivot to make this the bigger opportunity.

Kook argues legacy satellite operators failed to invest for the future and were disrupted by SpaceX and AST, similar to how 1990s on-premise software incumbents were disrupted by SaaS; he contrasts this with today's 'Mag Seven' tech leaders, who he says are more alert to disruption.

Discussing SpaceX's plan to build small cells for terrestrial mobile connectivity, Kook cites analyst Earl Lum of Earl Lum Wireless Research, who called it 'one of the top 3 dumbest ideas' in his 4 decades in the industry, noting a typical outdoor small cell (5 watts per channel) would be difficult to install residentially.

Kook's own view is SpaceX won't actually build a competing terrestrial small-cell/MVNO network because it wouldn't generate attractive returns on assets; he believes this is negotiating posture aimed at securing an MVNO deal with T-Mobile, which he also doesn't expect to happen, an outcome he says would leave ASTS with all the MNOs and government revenue.

Kook theorizes that a fund called 'Situational Awareness,' which held roughly $100 billion of long-AI-correlated risk (long AI stocks and long AI-adjacent shorts), blew up and was bought by Citadel at about a 10% discount to market.

He believes Citadel has been publicly liquidating that book, and that market makers' preference to avoid volatility during the illiquid August period may explain why implied volatility on ASTS has collapsed even as realized volatility (86 vol trailing 30 days, 73 vol trailing 10 days) remains elevated.

He notes implied vol first stepped down around June 11th (from about 126 to 100) before falling further in August, and speculates that once the fund unwind completes in the next week or two, volatility and buying interest could return as retail re-engages.

Fed governor Kevin Warsh came out hawkish today and appears to be setting up for a September rate hike, with hope that will be enough to let the Fed hold through October ahead of midterm elections.

He distinguishes the current environment from 2022, saying inflation today is 'persistent' rather than on a 'runaway course,' so the Fed doesn't need to hike as aggressively as it did then.

Warsh floated creating a new Fed framework using broader, more real-time data, which Anpanman thinks could give the Fed an 'out' to skip a September hike if updated data shows inflation near or below the 2% target.

He cites Truflation, a real-time inflation data provider, whose data suggests most areas are actually showing weakening/deflationary trends rather than the persistent inflation the Fed is citing.

He notes reports that the US has 'almost taken over' Venezuela's oil and speculates oil prices should start coming down as a result, though it's uncertain.

He cites a US general's comments that the Strait of Hormuz has largely been secured with oil traffic flowing, saying he trusts that account more than statements from Trump or Iranian news agencies.

He argues investors look for company-specific explanations during drawdowns as a coping mechanism, citing Virgin Galactic's unexplained rally to around $8 earlier in the year as an example of pure sector beta with no underlying fundamental improvement.

He guesses the damaged New Glenn pad will be back in service in the first few weeks of January, and that the vehicle will likely need 2-3 successful non-AST commercial missions before carrying AST satellites, so SpaceX is expected to handle AST's next several launches.

He estimates SpaceX's NeoCloud (AI compute) leasing revenue now makes up roughly 45-50% of total company revenue, driven by deals with Google and Anthropic reportedly structured on short, roughly 3-month lease terms.

He compares NeoCloud-heavy names like IREN, saying it trades around 3x 2028 EBITDA and about 8x next year's EBITDA, reflecting market skepticism about the durability of AI compute leasing revenue.

He notes Street 2030 revenue estimates for SpaceX are around $415 billion versus Elon Musk's own stated goal of reaching $3 trillion by 2030.

His theory is that AST originally planned a September Falcon 9 launch with near-term shipment of Bluebird 14, 15, and 16, but found and fixed an issue during testing, pushing the likely launch to early October.

He frames the delay positively, saying catching and fixing an issue in testing shows the testing process is working, which matters more for AST than for Starlink since AST isn't launching enough satellites to treat any as expendable if one gets 'bricked' in space.

Space Mob due diligence spotted what he counts as 4 boxes outside and probably 1 inside AST's facility (5 total, versus the usual 3), which he interprets as preparation to ship two satellite batches close together.

He guesses this could mean two launches in October, or one shipment near the start of November and another in late November, depending on how production and the box rotation plays out.

A new Antonov cargo flight delivered an estimated 7-8 composite 'donut' rings from India; based on his running count of prior deliveries, he estimates AST's composite ring supply is now at roughly Bluebird 33-34, even though micron (subcomponent) production is already complete through about 45-46.

He recalls reports from around January 2026 that an early batch of composite rings from India had defects requiring redesign or reinforcement, and says the design now appears solid given six satellites have safely reached orbit without ring failures.

He suggests flying rings in via Antonov rather than shipping by boat signals AST wants to accelerate ring supply to ramp production and shipping cadence toward the second half of Q4 2026, possibly reaching two launches per month.

He rates AST roughly a '4 or 5' out of 10 on a promotional-to-hermit scale, attributing this to CEO Abel Avellan's engineering-focused, execution-over-talk mentality, recalling a conversation with Adriana Cisneros at the BlueWalker 3 launch confirming being promotional 'is not Abel's DNA.'

He contrasts AST with more promotional post-SPAC peers like Enovix and Eos Energy, arguing investors who left AST for those companies during 2023-2024 due to frustration with AST's communication were ultimately 'brutalized.'

He describes AST's Q2 2026 earnings call as 'chock-full of information' that wasn't repeated in press releases, arguing the company discloses material information on calls even when it doesn't blast out PR for every item.

He speculates AST's government or subprime counterparties may prefer the company not widely publicize such awards.

He contrasts AST's current position — over $3.5 billion in cash, a $1.3 billion contracted backlog, partnerships with all top MNOs, and numerous defense awards, at a roughly $20+ billion valuation — against its 2022-2024 state as a roughly $700 million, pre-revenue company with only about $100 million of cash left and no commercial satellites yet launched.

He argues the Ligado spectrum deal alone, once deployed, could be worth $20 billion, roughly matching the company's current market valuation and implying the rest of the business is effectively 'free' at current prices.

He notes AST has launched two batches of Block 2 satellites successfully and deployed nearly all of them, expecting a press release for Bluebird 11's successful antenna unfold 'probably on Monday.'

He says a tweeted production-pipeline update shows AST has materials for satellites up through roughly Bluebird 48, and the company has 'line of sight' to 45 satellites, which he says is enough to provide commercial service.

He says SpaceX will no longer launch Falcon 9 Starlink missions from Cape Canaveral; future Starlink V3 launches will use Starship from Cape Canaveral, while V2/Mini/Direct-to-Cell Starlinks will launch from Vandenberg, California, freeing up Falcon 9 manifest capacity at Cape Canaveral.

He explains a 'standby' option where AST could take over a Falcon 9 slot from another satellite company (he mentions Telesat and OneWeb as examples) that misses its scheduled deadline, at a lower cost than a dedicated launch.

He confirms AST had a Falcon 9 launch scheduled for September that has now been pushed to October, with a few more Falcon 9 launches expected later this year plus potential standby launch opportunities.

He speculates the 'fourth' MNO relationship discussed around the AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile satellite joint venture may actually be the JV itself, potentially funded by contributed spectrum (e.g., from Grain Management) and infrastructure, operating alongside AST's direct definitive agreements with each carrier.

He says Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile are currently in talks with AST SpaceMobile, without giving a timeline for when any agreements might be finalized.

He says daily AST volume has been low this summer (about 6.6 million shares the prior day, 9.4 million today), and flags that Citadel was previously not an active trader in SPAC-origin stocks like AST before the 'Situational Awareness' blowup, calling the sudden shift 'weird' and something he can't fully explain.

Kook compares this policy moment to historical 'tooling phase' precedents where government action set the stage for a later capital cycle before the broad market noticed: Bill Clinton-era housing policy juicing Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac ahead of the housing boom, and China's entry into the WTO unleashing a commodity supercycle that oil and steel markets did not price in until years later (citing oil hitting roughly $148 around the SemGroup collapse in 2007-08).

Kook argues that when the US government 'puts its thumb on the scale' with a directive like this, it tends to create undue flows of liquidity toward the favored sector, similar to how mortgage-rate policy prior to the 2008 financial crisis drove huge capital inflows into housing; he sees the current space policy as an analogous, deliberate distortion meant to accelerate US space/launch capacity.

Kook argues that SpaceX's overt statements (including from Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk on earnings calls) about going after MNO customers directly have made it harder for SpaceX to win MNO partnership agreements, since it is now seen as a competitive threat rather than a partner.

Kook, citing Anpanman's public commentary, relayed the view that 'the best thing that ever happened to ASTS was SpaceX entering as a competitor,' because SpaceX's aggressive posture created urgency and consensus among MNOs to back ASTS instead.

Kook states his strong belief that T-Mobile will eventually drop SpaceX/Starlink and move to ASTS as its satellite partner, explicitly saying he has no idea when this will happen or what the stock's reaction would be, though he hopes for a large single-day stock move when it does.

Kook notes the ASTS stock did not move on the Vodafone Portugal announcement, framing this as typical of the current 'tooling phase' where positive commercial news is not yet reflected in the share price because the resulting revenue is not yet visible.

Kook describes the current period as the 'tooling phase' — the wiring and hook-up work that will eventually drive large revenue generation but is not yet visible to generalist investors covering many stocks, comparing his search for this kind of conviction to a similar but ultimately unrealized 'spirit vision' he once had on Joby.

Kook uses a news story about a French tourist who died in Death Valley due to lack of cell service as an example of the 'gray zone'/'not spot' coverage gap opportunity that AST SpaceMobile-enabled spectrum, including the Grain 7x7 MHz spectrum, could help solve nationwide.

Kook describes the Grain spectrum as a nationwide 7x7 MHz slug that he doesn't think ASTS strictly needs but views as a 'nice to have,' capable of providing ubiquitous gray-zone ('not spot') coverage nationwide when paired with ASTS's technology.

Kook credits community researcher 'Justin Bar23' with tracking the Ligado FCC docket, which remains active; Kook calls Ligado 'telecom's Afghanistan' — a historically cursed asset that many well-resourced players have chased and failed to secure — but says he remains optimistic given the current administration's regulatory priorities.

Kook argues the Grain spectrum would be unattractive to SpaceX because its satellites can't handle low-band spectrum, the price is high, and there is a risk of losing the spectrum if it is not 'lit up' by a deadline Kook believes is 2029 (stated with hedging, 'I believe').

Kook lays out game theory around the Grain sale: Grain's bankers could leak false SpaceX interest to induce ASTS to bid against itself; SpaceX could buy it for cash given uncertainty over whether it would deploy the spectrum; ASTS could buy it but likely lacks the $6 billion in cash and would prefer a Ligado-style upfront-payment-plus-revenue-share-plus-equity structure; or Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile could lease/acquire it jointly with ASTS, which Kook views as the most likely and most economically sensible outcome given full US-market deployment certainty and public-interest benefits.

Kook states the Grain spectrum situation appears to be aiming for resolution within September 2026.

Kook frames a Grain-to-ASTS outcome as a proof point of what he calls the 'Catsy theorem' — his view that spectrum will ultimately flow to whichever operator can deploy it most efficiently, implying ASTS is the low-cost producer that spectrum will gravitate toward.

Kook offers two readings of the removed clause: it may have inadvertently revealed a non-public ASTS-T-Mobile contract, or it revealed a real prior testing agreement that became moot once the spectrum transaction with Grain closed and T-Mobile was no longer the relevant counterparty; either way, Kook concludes ASTS had been testing on this spectrum with T-Mobile.

Kook notes AT&T COO Jeff McElfresh publicly congratulated ASTS on testing on the Grain-related spectrum, and argues McElfresh's interest only makes sense if that spectrum ultimately relates to the AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile joint venture, reinforcing his view that the JV is built around ASTS's technology to the exclusion of SpaceX.

Kook says he remains confident in ASTS despite the stock languishing in the 70s, stating that whether the stock is ultimately worth $2,000, $1,000, or $500 doesn't change his conviction that the company is still in the early tooling phase of a platform shift.

Kook compared ASTS to Rocket Lab and Redwire, criticizing an unnamed space investor's top-10 list; he singled out Redwire's roughly 5% gross margins in 2025 as evidence it is an engineered-services business without pricing power or platform economics, unlike ASTS which he sees as a platform winner with real existing revenue.

Kook said he expects a satellite shipment announcement from AST SpaceMobile 'next week' as August ends, and is hoping for progress on Grain spectrum and a Ligado approval in the near term.

Kook said a handshake agreement for Japan's J-LEO sovereign satellite contract has already occurred and that he considers it as good as a signed contract, with the formal announcement expected in roughly a month or two given Japan's slower deal-announcement timelines.

Anpanman calls the post bullish because it implies AT&T is supportive of AST working with Grain Management, and its reference to "industry collaboration" building on the joint venture implies AT&T's satellite joint venture is working closely with AST and Grain to deploy the spectrum for satellite services.

Anpanman argues this adjacency, combined with McElfresh's post, suggests the big carriers are working with AST inside the joint venture, and that prior community speculation that the Grain spectrum would ultimately be used by or folded into the joint venture is now effectively confirmed by McElfresh choosing to make this public statement.

Anpanman's key takeaway is that AT&T and the joint venture are likely to end up with the spectrum in some form and that AST will be the one lighting it up, effectively negating the premise that SpaceX would acquire it.

T-Mobile has some economic upside tied to usage of Grain Management's spectrum; Anpanman assumes T-Mobile is likely leaning on Grain not to sell the spectrum to SpaceX, since a friendly sale to Grain being later used against the carriers by SpaceX would be counterproductive for T-Mobile.

Anpanman says the first round of buyer interest in Grain's spectrum process is supposed to be due the first week of September, approximately two weeks after this recording, and expects news to emerge around that process; he notes that if things stay quiet, that's likely a good sign since AST's side typically does not leak information.

Anpanman acknowledges Space Mob has been frustrated that satellite shipping updates haven't come soon enough, but says he believes shipping is truly imminent and expects an update, possibly over the coming weekend.

AST is the only satellite provider using cellular low-band spectrum (roughly 600-900 MHz); SpaceX's direct-to-cell satellites focus on mid-band (currently around 1.9 GHz, with a next generation Anpanman speculates could span roughly 1.8-2.5 GHz), while Globalstar and Iridium operate in L-band and S-band and cannot use cellular spectrum today.

If Grain does not secure a satellite partner by the deadline, it would be on the hook for a multi-billion-dollar, multi-year terrestrial build-out instead, giving Grain an incentive not to overplay its hand in negotiations.

Anpanman believes Grain's bankers leaked the Bloomberg story to Bloomberg to increase competitive tension between AST and SpaceX during confidential negotiations, since parties typically sign confidentiality agreements but leaks let information circulate while providing plausible deniability.

Anpanman compares this to Jay Monroe of Globalstar previously floating a $10 billion number in early Bloomberg articles to drive up bidding, which he says ultimately helped push Amazon to pay up in the Globalstar acquisition.

SpaceX can outbid anyone for the spectrum given its scale and access to capital, and would face no antitrust issue, but would need to build an entirely new satellite platform with a much larger phased array to use low-band spectrum, distinct from its existing V2 direct-to-cell and V3 fixed-wireless satellites and its orbital data center plans.

Anpanman is uncertain SpaceX could develop and deploy this new satellite architecture and meet the 3-year build-out requirement, given competing priorities across its other satellite programs.

If SpaceX wants the spectrum, it would likely have to pay cash outright rather than lease it, because Grain would carry execution risk if SpaceX fails to build out a satellite in time; Anpanman agreed this is a good point given the roughly 1.5-2 year satellite development timeline SpaceX would need.

SpaceX has reportedly signaled to carriers (citing a Wells Fargo research note referencing Brett Johnson) that it wants an MVNO agreement, while publicly threatening to compete directly if carriers don't cooperate; buying the Grain spectrum outright would foreclose the MVNO path by signaling SpaceX is fully committed to becoming a competing MNO.

Anpanman speculates AST would likely offer Grain a Ligado-style deal: cash upfront to lock in exclusivity, a multi-year long-term lease, and a revenue share he guesses (explicitly as a spitball) could be 20-40% of revenue generated from the spectrum, rather than an outright purchase.

Anpanman notes AST recently hired a UBS vice chair as a strategic advisor and suggests the timing fits with structuring a potential Grain deal.

Anpanman contrasts a $6 billion cash sale to SpaceX, which he calls an 'okay' but not a home-run return for Grain, against building a business with AST that generates steady cash flows over many years, which he speculates (as a rough guess) could be valued at $10-13 billion depending on annual revenue and multiple.

Anpanman speculates the reported AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile joint venture's mentioned 'third and fourth player' opening could include Grain itself as a new entity contributing its 800 MHz spectrum, with AST contributing satellites and the carriers paying for capacity.

Asked who the fourth JV player could be, Anpanman speculated it could be Comcast, Charter/Spectrum (cable companies), regional carrier Spire, or Grain itself becoming part of a 'super wholesaler' structure.