Anpanman - Why Starlink’s Direct to Device Strategy is Delusional

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[00:01:03] Speaker C: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:01:07] Speaker D: It will just basically come to your phone and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large. Good morning, everyone. Hopefully you guys can hear me. I'm using different headphones today. If you can, just give me a thumbs up. I just want to make sure that I'm not speaking into the void. Let me see here. Um, but yeah, I wanted to get people together and talk about SpaceX, AST, Team One Energy and Bridger. First, I'll start off with SpaceX. And so I think, as some of you know, I participated in the IPO and I flipped the shares at $165. Of course, overnight I was thinking about it more as the stock price continued to move up. And we might be witnessing perhaps the greatest meme stock of all time. And I think SpaceX has the potential to do something unique in that it is a company that hits on a number of sectors that people care about, right? And then on top of that, you've got a name that everyone recognizes around the world. And so whether you are an aspirational investor or degen, owning a piece of SpaceX, I think is something that perhaps anybody wants. And so When you have this IPO where such a small amount was raised, small amount meaning, I think, let's see here, I think less than 5% of the shares outstanding pro forma were sold to the public. And so obviously while $80 initially was $83 billion, was it $83? Actually, let me take a look. But beyond the $75 billion, you had the green share exercise. So Let's just do the math here. So $86.3 billion, which is 15% for the green shoe, that in of itself is a large number, but then because it's a small percentage of the actual outstanding, the float is very tiny, right? And so when you've got all these institutions, you've got retail investors, whether here in the US, but then globally, and SpaceX, on the one hand is not pure play. On the other hand, it kind of gives you an entrée to all these areas of growth that are interesting to people. So whether that's space, AI, you know, obviously they just closed the Cursor deal today. And then next-gen data centers like NeoClouds, then it's kind of a hodgepodge of what is hot, I think. So, you know, for people that are interested in investing in those areas, SpaceX is an interesting vehicle to get exposure to all of them, right? And here you've got a market leader in space. Obviously they've got a dominant position for launch and for communications, which are 2 very attractive markets. Communications probably being the most attractive out there. And then you've got this call option on AI data centers. And so that's a huge potential market. And then you've got xAI, which is kind of interesting, but it seems like the company has pivoted And the large compute that they built out, they've now, in order to bring in real revenue, they're basically leasing out their infrastructure to Anthropic and Google. And so they're going to generate a pretty significant amount of revenue each year. I'm not sure what the margins are, but they're doing that to show a tremendous amount of growth, which they will. And then they bought Cursor, which is programming tools for $60 billion, not a small number, but if they're going to get xAI to the level of some of these other AI engines, they're going to need to add some functionality around it. And so that deal seems like a reasonable one to make. And then you've got the data center side of, or sorry, you've got, what did I just go through? So space and the data center side and xAI. And of course X itself, which I guess maybe you could kind of make it, make a similar comparison to Reddit. You know, X is a platform where people generate content, which then, you know, people are using to, or X is using to train its models. But anyway, it's an interesting group of companies. And so I think at least for the near term until the first lockup comes, which I think is Sometime in August or September, this is going to be trading with a very small float, right? And so while it is a large number in terms of the actual float that's tradable, it's not that big, right? So for a $3 trillion company or wherever we are right now to have a float that's only, what, 638 million shares, that can be pushed around quite a bit. And so on top of that, you've got Entry into a number of take away some some percentage of float and create some artificial demand. And so, yeah, you've got ingredients for it'd be a pretty wild summer for SpaceX that as a trading vehicle for people to speculate on. And so with that, you know, you've seen some draining of the space sector. Interestingly, I was looking. This hasn't happened to the neo clouds. So IREN, NBIS, and some of these others SpaceX clearly is now competing with, but for the space sector, you've seen a decent amount of liquidity come out of the market, which I guess is not unexpected. And to be candid, there's a few companies that are true leaders, still early stage, of course, but Rocket Lab is a leader in launch and space systems. AST is a leader in communications, but obviously we need to get the constellation out there. Planet Labs for Earth observation. But then, you know, there's a few other names, Voyager, missing a few here, but there's clearly an ecosystem of space companies. But then I would argue that, you know, quite a few of them are more on the speculative side, or I guess lower quality. And so I I mean, just to name a very obvious one, it's Virgin Galactic, right? Or let's see here, Sida Space, some of these smaller names which are more like trading vehicles and speculative versus companies that at least in the near term have real prospects. So yeah, I do agree with what Peter Beck said the other day is that we are going to start seeing a bifurcation of higher quality names versus lower quality names. With the, with SpaceX coming, you know, to market. But the interesting dynamic is that, yeah, there, I think the space sector is being used as a source of funds, at least for AST, which I've been able to check their, the real-time short interest. You've seen a big bump up in short interest over the last few days. And so, you know, we're almost back at the all-time high, which is like 68.4 million shares. I think the all-time high we reached a few weeks ago was $69 million. And so that's going to continue, I think, until this, you know, you've got maybe, I'm guessing some hedge funds who have put on a momentum trade, they're long SpaceX and then they short the basket. But that trade is going to unwind when SpaceX does pull back to a degree or when you've got these I guess newer space investors, they start looking for other names, other ways to play the space theme, right? Or looking for pure play ways to play. And I mentioned this, you know, Kuka made a good point over the weekend when looking at AI, Nvidia was kind of the most obvious and pure play way to play that theme. And then once that trade had happened and Nvidia rerated, It then, you know, folks then moved on to these other plays, right? These other bottlenecks, whether it was AMD, but then also, you name it, like the energy companies, the folks who are making components that go into gas turbines. I mean, you name it, like optical. There were a whole host of other ways to play the investment theme. And so I think we're probably going to observe that with SpaceX. as it continues to move up over the summer. And, you know, it is a bit scary just given its valuation, but I think the dynamics are there and you're going to have some, you know, what I would call not smart guys try to step in front of the train and try to short it because they're like, well, oh my gosh, this thing shouldn't exist at $3 trillion, $4 trillion, whatever it is, which they, you know, they could be right. But at the same time, because of the the float dynamics and the interest around the sector, those guys are going to get their faces ripped off, which I'm assuming some people did short after the IPO or day after the IPO or are looking to short and they're going to learn the hard way. But anyway, as folks become interested in space sector and they look for pure plays, there's obviously a few You know, obvious names that are going to garner attention. And so for me, that would be AST SpaceMobile, Rocket Lab, and I think Planet. Those are kind of the 3 important ones that people will gravitate towards. And then there could be interest in some of these other names as well. But yeah, I think overall, while it is a little painful with the space sector coming off and, you know, I think You know, the run-up that we had through the end of May, that clearly showed the top of, in terms of max euphoria heading into the IPO. And then Blue Origin kind of put a damper on things when the rocket blew up on the pad near Glenn. But yeah, we're kind of, the pendulum is swinging, had swung extremely to the right and now we're kind of swinging to the left. And I expect you know, AST, Rocket Lab, some of these other names to rebound, um, perhaps in the next, I don't know, next few days. I mean, AST had the launch, uh, tomorrow early morning at 2:39 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. And so Bluebird, um, 8, 9, and 10 will be launched and we should expect to see a shipment of 11, 12, and 13 soon. Um, and so yeah, some of these catalysts could be the the mechanism to, you know, kind of turn the tide. But anyway, I do think my point before though about SpaceX being probably the biggest meme stock ever, I think that's going to hold true. And the sky's the limit until, you know, these lockups start coming into play. But until then, you know, that's going to get all the attention maybe for the next week or two. And then as people, as the dust settles and people start thinking about like, oh, are there other ways to play this? They're going to start looking at some new names. And if I was Jeff Bezos, by the way, like if once you get the rocket, the pad rebuilt and you get a few commercial launches going, I, given the valuation of SpaceX, I would absolutely take Blue Origin public because I think the ability to raise capital And the interest and, you know, that's going to be a pretty big watershed moment, I think, for the sector, for SpaceX and Blue Origin to be public, because then you then will truly have an investable sector with a number of different names and whether you want to go long some and short some or just be long the entire sector, that's going to be a tremendous amount of market cap you can invest in. So going back to AST SpaceMobile, so we've got the launch scheduled for early tomorrow morning. There's a number of folks that are down at Cape already. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it because I've got some family commitments going on. I couldn't get out of them. So I'm going to have to live vicariously through folks who are there. And I know folks are, some people are already there now and they'll be posting pictures and videos soon. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. This is our first batch launch, which is in the stacked configuration. There were many legacy consultants who said that you couldn't stack our satellites in a Falcon 9, but clearly you can. There were some questions around the release schedule of the satellites, what the mechanism is. I think Katzi kind of went through it to a degree where you probably have some springs in there and then a release mechanism. And so very gentle here on Earth, they wouldn't be able to do much, but in space, these would actually be able to create enough energy to get the satellite to move off of one another. And if you look at the Falcon 9 launch schedule, each of these satellites are set to be released 5 minutes apart. And so I think that's, I get, you know, given how fast the second stage is moving, that's going to be enough spacing in order for the satellites to get to the proper orbit and placement and then eventually open up and start service. I will say just looking at, I think it was like ARK the other day, they were talking about how SpaceX and Starlink is going to replace MNOs, which I think is pretty crazy grand vision, delusional. But if that's truly what Starlink is trying to accomplish, then, and I wouldn't put anything past it, I think That just increases the value of AST SpaceMobile and, or the value of AST SpaceMobile is just increasing by the day. What ARK was laying out is that they were saying you could have a situation where Starlink is trying to sell a wireless service to consumers directly, where the consumer would be served primarily on the Starlink network and then their fallback would be an MNO network. And so whether that was Verizon, AT&T, or Verizon, or sorry, AT&T or T-Mobile, I'm not sure how that would work because obviously the threshold network you would need for most of the time, and you would need a likely MVNO partnership to make that seamless, unless you wanted to do it in a very kludgy way, which is possible. You could actually The way that I could see that work is that you would buy an eSIM from Starlink. You would still have to pay for your, you know, AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile service, but you would order the Starlink service first on your phone. So the phone would look for Starlink first, and then secondarily, it would be the wireless carrier that you pick. And so this would be a standalone, a separate service that Is not integrated into the MNO network. And so it would operate in such a way where your phone would always look for Starlink first, and then if it can't, then it'll default back to AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile. And that would be a, again, a separate package. That would not be seamless if you were on a call on Starlink network and then you dropped and you have switched to AT&T because they're not integrated. Your call, your voice call would drop or your data would drop. And of course you would be paying still the MNO for their separate service. And the way that Starlink could make this work better is if they were to enter into an MVNO agreement with T-Mobile, AT&T, or Verizon. But as we all know, those 3 carriers do not want to enable Starlink. So that's not going to happen. And so this grand idea of Starlink you know, starting their own mobile network operator, you could do it, but it's going to be very, it's going to have a lot of friction. It's going to be messy. The user is going to have to buy their own subscription separately from AT&T or Verizon. And it's not going to work indoors, right? Which might be okay. Like if you have Wi-Fi indoors, you might be all right with that. But if you're outside and you're, you know, in a forest or you're in these areas that do have some level of, you know, not a direct line of sight to the sky and there's some obstructions, then your service is likely going to suffer, right? If you're in a car or if you're in a car and go through a tunnel, you certainly, while using Starlink service, would most likely get cut off, right? And that's the biggest, one of the biggest differentiators for AST SpaceMobile in that the first constellation is going to deliver service via low-band spectrum. And so that's propagation and coverage. And so going going through a tunnel or being in some of these situations. If you're in the forest, you're going to have good coverage. If you're in a house that doesn't have Wi-Fi, you'll have good coverage. And that's a key differentiator. And that's something that only can be enabled by having a partnership with the MNOs and leasing their spectrum. Now, there is some low-band spectrum that potentially could be coming to market. Some people talk about grain management, trying to get their spectrum lit up and approved by the FCC. so that they can enable direct-to-device service. I know, I think they were testing with Link to a degree, but I will say if the FCC does approve that spectrum for service, the highest value use would be to go to AST SpaceMobile. However, you could see a situation where perhaps Starlink would buy that spectrum. If they did, Then I think that would pretty much lock up all the MNOs with AST SpaceMobile because that would be a full admission that they're entering the wireless, mobile wireless business. And that would force the MNOs to basically all work with AST SpaceMobile. But if Starlink did that, they would have to architect a new satellite that would have to have So the second generation Starlink satellites, which can service mid-band spectrum, S-band, those will have a phased array of 5 meters by 5 meters. But in order to efficiently serve low-band spectrum, they'll have to come up with a satellite that has a bigger phased array, likely 10 meters by 10 meters or perhaps 15 by 15 meters, which is what our Block 2 satellites are. And so, you know, it's not out of the realm of the possibility they might be able to do that, but it's not as if there's low-band spectrum, enough of it that you can pick up globally, because most of it is pretty much locked up with carriers. So yeah, that's something to keep an eye out for. But I think what this is a long-winded way of saying, I think T-Mobile is going to sign a definitive agreement with ASD6 Global. You know, probably my guess is in the next few months, it's not going to be near term. I think AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile need to sign, or sorry, need to, excuse me, go definitive on their joint venture. And then that has to go through a regulatory review. And so for T-Mobile to sign a commercial definitive agreement with ASD, that probably would, you know, slow down a regulatory review. So they probably will hold off on that, but That wouldn't keep them from initially signing an MOU that they will work together and explore ways to have service. So I do expect though, in the next 3 to 6 months, or maybe more like 6-month timeframe, that AST will sign a definitive agreement with T-Mobile. And so I posed that question before, once AST locks up AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, how do How do you value that?
[00:21:26] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:26] Speaker D: If you have 100% of the most profitable market in the world, you're agreeing with the top 3 carriers. Yeah, that to me, that's kind of, it's game over, game changing. You know, we've talked about like the shifting economics perhaps for T-Mobile, you might, for all 3 carriers, you might have to shift from 50/50 to, I don't know, I'm just making it up like 40/60 or something over time. Right. But this is a good reminder that AST does have, you know, dependent agreements with AT&T and Verizon. Those are for the next 3 to 4 years, depending on what that agreement it is. And so that's not going to change. And so any potential change in the economics, you're probably looking at further out. And by that time, my guess, you know, when folks talk about the carriers trying to pressure AST on economics. You know, for a growth business where you need to fund the constellation and you're doing this in competition against Starlink, I don't think that's something that they'll push for because they, obviously this is an important area for the MNOs. And if you look at, it's interesting, if you look at the The sell side, how they've, I think it was maybe 2 to 3 years ago when they talked about satellite and potential competitive impact on the wireless carriers there, it wasn't really viewed as something to be worried about. And the company never got questioned, or each of the companies never really got questions about it. Whereas now, if you look at the most recent quarterly earnings calls and investor conferences, It seems like maybe 20% of the conversation is focused on satellite and how that could disrupt the incumbents. And so now you're seeing, and I think, was it Oppenheimer downgraded AT&T because of the potential competitive impact from Starlink? It's actually impacting their business, right? Because the market caps of all the 3 large carriers has come off quite a bit on this concern. And so this is definitely, something top of mind. It's the reason why obviously, you know, AT&T created the joint venture and with the agreement of Verizon, they allowed T-Mobile to come into the fold. And so while you and I understand this dynamic very clearly, I think it was Varda Space, the CEO, who clearly, I guess he doesn't know, he doesn't know the direct device market. He was saying, you know, Starlink's going to get the entire market. They're going to compete with the MNOs. And when asked about AST SpaceMobile, he didn't really have any views on it. And so I think we're obviously still very early. I know it's a cliché to say, but yeah, I think the market is going to learn over the coming weeks and months about this particular area, which, you know, the TAM, as the company SpaceX has pointed out, is over a trillion in size. And I think obviously they're taking into account the fixed wireless business as well, but for Direct Advice, you know, they view it as a $750 billion opportunity. And so that's what you're investing in. But yeah, so anyway, it looks like, I guess, yeah, the space sector is taking somewhat of a beating today, which isn't a surprise, I guess. But anyway, for those who have been invested in AST SpaceMobile, Uh, this is nothing new. Um, just stay focused, as I always say. Um, I did update the catalyst tracker yesterday. And so there are a few new items on there, um, which I'll just highlight briefly. And just look here.
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[00:26:14] Speaker D: Let me pull it up. Yeah. So over the weekend, some Space Mob due diligence uncovered, which this has been in process for quite some time, but there's a billion-dollar Japanese LEO project that is at a decision point. And the 2 front runners are Starlink and KDDI. And then, and then of course, AC Space Mobile with Rakuten. And so that could come towards the end of this month. There's been quite a few posts about it and people detailing why AST is probably the best fit for that. So we'll see. That's something that clearly I wasn't pricing in and perhaps the market, I know at sell side hasn't been pricing in, but if they get that, that would be pretty big. Let's see here. The, over last week, we also had the filing from the company. They're testing 900 megahertz spectrum. For military applications with U.S. Space Development Agency. And so what I'd expect to see an SDA granted from the FCC in the near future, especially given the importance of, you know, what we're doing around the military for radar application sensing and of course communications. Let's see here. I also did add some more specificity around these multi-launch agreements with Ariane. Mitsubishi, and it looks like Relativity is probably in the running as well. And so I'd expect the company to announce a handful of MLAs probably in the next few months here. I also did add this, which I didn't write extensively about, but others did, which is quite important. The Brazilian regulator Anatel approved AFT SpaceMobile for commercial service in Brazil, and they also allocated 10 MHz by 10 MHz of S-band spectrum. And so I think this is the regulatory framework that people should be thinking about. For AST going to market in some of these countries where they are working with local partners, the MNOs, it's going to ease our regulatory review for commercial access. And then on top of that, the ability to get S-band spectrum or L-band spectrum for free, basically, as long as we adhere to the requirements of that country, is important, right? And so getting a 10 by 10 megahertz allocation of spectrum is huge. Obviously, it's important for Brazil, just given how large that country is and the population that's spread across it. There's a lot of hard-to-reach areas. Direct-to-device is going to be a game changer. And so by leveraging the MNOs, low-band spectrum, that's going to provide great coverage and propagation. Then of course, getting an allocation of 10 by 10 S-band spectrum is huge. And not having to allocate any dollars to get that spectrum is a massive windfall. I don't think the market really understands that, but perhaps in the coming weeks and months it will. But anyway, that's kind of what I had for AST for folks who are listening. Specifically for that, you can drop off. Oh, you know, someone's correcting me here. Sorry, Link is testing with ATEx, not grain. So I misspoke there. Grain is still, I believe, up for grabs. And so one of the interesting things about their filing with the FCC is that they said they want to work with a direct-to-device provider that can deploy, I believe, the spectrum in the near term. And there's only one company that's doing that, right? There's only one constellation, one satellite that can utilize low-band spectrum. And that's AST SpaceMobile that includes Starlink because they can only do mid-band S-band spectrum. That also precludes any of these newer players as well. So that's a pretty big tell. Yeah. So that's all I had on AST. If that's what you're interested in, you can drop off now. I'm going to talk a little bit about T1 Energy, uh, and then also, uh, Bridger. So on T1 Energy, um, let's see, just wanted to give people a quick update. So I actually spoke with an ex who's a sell-side research analyst, um, who covers the sector, and I just, you know, was asking them a few questions about how institutional investors, um, were thinking about Fezzi Panda. And this person said that, um, it's a non-factor. like Fuzzy Panda stuff, people have, you know, got past it. No one really cares on the institutional side. Everyone is primarily focused on execution and the company's, you know, opportunity ahead. And so I found that kind of fascinating because obviously, I guess for retail investors, Fuzzy Panda, you know, has been a focus and quite candidly, it's been entertaining for me to kind of, you know, tear these guys down. But on the institutional side, no one really gets questions. The You know, they they will respond from time to time the sell side to this stuff, but overall it's not really a focus for institutional investors. One of the things that was interesting is that this particular analyst they they had due diligence after Freyr had announced the the Trina Solar transaction. They had spoken with contacts, DC regulators, and and people were comfortable with it, right? And so. Early on, as people know, this was viewed as a technology transfer from the Chinese to the US. And obviously there's a lot of things that you have to work through in order to make that happen. And these guys pretty much got a blessing from DC, which it kind of corroborates what the way I was thinking about it is obviously the company, once they announced the deal, I think it was in November and then it closed in December. they actually had to go through a CFIUS review, which for those that don't know, CFIUS includes all the regulators, includes the Office of the President, includes the CIA, FBI, includes everybody, right? And so when you go through a CFIUS review, a review is to see if a transaction is a threat to national security, if there's any issues with it, and they got through CFIUS review, And so that was a pretty big milestone for the company and in some ways a blessing for the transaction. Now, obviously things evolve from a regulatory perspective where they had to get into fiat compliance for 2025 and they hit those milestones and for 2026 they've got to do that. And it's an ongoing process, but for all intents and purposes, the company has been successful in doing that. One interesting thing to know, which I posted about yesterday, is that these Section 232 tariffs that are going to come into effect potentially as early as the end of this month. When I asked about the impact on spot modular, spot solar module pricing, I think the current spot US price is around 28 cents per watt. Whereas with the implementation of this tariff, which would raise prices for you know, solar modules that are built outside the US, you could see pricing go from 28 cents to 38 to 40 cents. So essentially a 40% increase. And so with that, if the company was, you know, fully up and running the G2 Austin fab on top of the Dallas solar module fab, or sorry, solar module plant, you could see EBITDA go well north of a billion dollars with that type of pricing. And so margins would get pretty significantly juiced, right? And so I think no one on the street is pricing this in just yet because it's still speculative. We don't really know ultimately what the tariff, you know, what I guess flavor of tariff will be implemented by this administration. But based off of consensus, you know, it looks like the impact could be an increase in pricing of, call it 39, 40 cents, which there's been some people who have pushed back and said, well, if solar module pricing goes up by that much, you know, will it be as attractive? Maybe there won't be as much buying. But I think when you look at the overall, you know, bill of materials for a data center, solar panels are actually a pretty small cost. And so the increase in pricing at that level probably isn't going to impact the overall project. And so I don't really think it's going to impact demand that much. But it was this analyst's view that over the long run, if these guys can execute this year and people start giving them credit for not only phase 1, but phase 2 of G2 Austin, then the stock could triple. So that was pretty interesting to hear because that's been my view that the stock could triple from this level once they show execution and you know, G2 Austin, you get to a point where it's about to, you know, start operations. So anyway, that's interesting, something to keep in mind. And then finally, talking about Bridger, you know, fire season's in full swing. I'm going to try to do a space with Ben Deverin. Unfortunately, I just couldn't do it yesterday. But, you know, I think the company from a financial point of view is going to be ahead of where the street thinks they are. And then on top of that, I know we've all been waiting for a decision point of what the company's going to do with the 2 Spanish scoopers that are available out in Europe. Is the company going to lease them out for work in Europe or bring them back here for the US? There's some rumblings of potential contract work that those 2 scoopers could be involved in. And so I think there is a possibility that on the one hand, yes, it's been delayed, and so that's not good. On the other hand, I think there is a potential for the market to be completely surprised of whether you're being used for, which is why they were being delayed. And so yeah, just keep an eye out for that. For me personally, I've continued to add position because I do think Bridger is completely undervalued by the market. And obviously it's, you know, there's not much institutional interest or support, but with financial performance and execution, you will get to a point where it's hard to ignore. So anyway, I'm still bullish on Bridger and I still have my position. I continue to add to it. But anyway, I will probably do a space at some point, maybe this evening or early tomorrow after we get the successful launch, knock on wood, of Bluebird 8, 9, and 10 for AST SpaceMobile. So yeah, everyone, exciting Exciting times. I know, um, perhaps stock price, you know, pulling back is not— has gotten people down, but just stay focused. Uh, if you're a long-term shareholder, um, this is a drop in the bucket on the path to what I believe is a tremendous, uh, you know, future and a future of success for the company. And so by getting these 3 satellites up, we have 6. This is going to increase it by 50%. got another 3, so we're basically double the constellation in the next, what, 2 months? Um, and we're going to continue to roll out more, right? And so, um, lots of things to look forward to. But anyway, thanks everyone for joining. Um, actually, before I drop off, let me just look and see if there's any questions that people have. Actually, okay. Uh, are you still holding ASTX for swing? Yes, I still hold it. Do you think SpaceX is still draining liquidity from SpaceBasket? If so, give me your experience. Do you expect this to stop? Uh, and are you afraid of a double whammy if SpaceX does drop? Does it take the whole sector down too? Um, let's see. So there's definitely some liquidity being drained. Uh, there's, there's obviously the fast money guys who, who bought into the space sector on the way up, uh, expecting a ramp, and then, you know, they, they're exiting. And so I think there is a bit of that. There's also probably some bit of shorting of the space basket to go along SpaceX. And so, yeah, there's some of those dynamics at play. Let's see. Are you afraid of a double whammy? SpaceX does drop the sector down too. That's certainly a risk, right? And so SpaceX going down could take the entire sector down, but I don't know. I mean, I think we've actually, given back quite a bit of the gains from, you know, call it through the end of May. And so just to give folks an example, I think what BlackSky was, 55, 54, and now it's at 29. And so quite a bit of premium has come out of the sector. Rocket Lab has held on quite well. I mean, it's above what, 104 AST, given the, you know, the challenges that we've had with Bluebird 7 not being inserted into orbit. And then of course, you know, you've got the Blue Origin New Glenn having its mishap on the launch pad. That's another, that's been another, you know, drawback. But at the same time, you know, I think the stock trading here is pretty good just given those things. But as a reminder, I do think we've got a pretty significant pipeline of good news coming. I do expect there to be some big news around defense awards soon. I don't know exactly when, but that's certainly coming. And then I think as the market, as I mentioned before, this is kind of the big one. As the market starts to understand what the US JV between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile means and what that means around essentially T-Mobile opening up its doors for us, Um, the market has yet to really price that in or to understand it, to be candid. Let's see, guys, I have a big question. What happened to rising tide lifts all boats stuff? I'm down 30%, still holding, but what happened to that? Uh, what happened to that? Well, we, we did— let's see, let's look. We did have a rising of all boats, uh, but it just happened— let's see, Just look here. Your question: the rising of the boats happened from from the beginning of the year all the way through the end of May, and so going back to Black Sky as an example, Black Sky started the year at eighteen bucks. It peaked at fifty-three at the end of May, and then what did the origin of Glenn had his disassembly? You know, the entire sector derated, and so now Black Sky's at. So we didn't have that already happen. The rising tide did lift all boats. And then of course SpaceX, that boat decided to take water from everyone else. And so Rocket Lab, for example, started the year at 70. It peaked at what, 150 at the end of May. And then now it's at 105, which is actually pretty good. Going to AST SpaceMobile, Started the year at 72, peaked at 135, um, going into Bluebird 7 launch. And then, or actually, no, is that right?
[00:41:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:36] Speaker D: Or post Bluebird 7 launch, which was in April, we peaked at 104, 105, but then we peaked with the space sector at 135. That's kind of crazy. I forgot about that. At the end of May. And now we're at 83. So we're actually still above where we started in January. So there was this rising tide that lifted all boats. And as I think, you know, I've talked about and some others as well, there was this expected ramp into the SpaceX IPO, but then at some point there was going to be a pullback, right? But that pullback happened a lot earlier with the, with New Glenn failing. on the launchpad or having its mishap. But, you know, I do expect there to be more digestion and as positioning continues to kind of move around, at some point news around and milestones around specific names is going to matter again. And, you know, we've got a launch coming up here soon. We also have, as I mentioned before, some of these other things that are that are expected. And so I think that's going to help, you know, reverse this, this downtrend that we've been on. Let's see.
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[00:43:13] Speaker D: Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast! And breathe. Sorry, I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order.
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[00:43:38] Speaker D: Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS. Will they delay shipment again? Uh, I'm not sure what this question means. Um, the birds are already encapsulated in a Falcon 9 fairing and are launching first thing tomorrow morning. So, um, Could the launch be delayed? Yes, it could be delayed. We have a launch window between 2:39 and I think it's like 4:15 AM. And so due to weather, there could be some delays. And if weather there is bad or there's any issues, then they might push the launch back a day or two. But I don't expect there to be any delays. So that's pretty much it. I do think we have the next batch of satellites. Those are going to be ready fairly soon. And then, but just keep in mind that even if the satellites are ready, you may not ship them until Falcon, you know, SpaceX is ready to integrate it into the next Falcon 9 that's taking up that batch. And so, you know, expect to hear some communication from the company when that batch is ready to be shipped. And then there could be some waiting time until it gets closer, which Which is kind of cool. We've now seen this, I guess, 3-week period of when we ship the satellites and they're integrated into the fairings. So that's a really quick turnaround time. And so I think, you know, for the next batch, you might get a PR from the company that it's done and it's ready. And then you'll get a shipping date, which is going to be obviously closer to when the actual launch happens. So I think the launch for The second batch is probably going to happen, you know, late July or early August. So, so we'll see. But then in the meantime, as I mentioned before, we'll probably get some news around defense contracts. And my guess is some of these monthly launch agreements, we'll probably see something more formally inked with ULA. And then perhaps MHI, Ariane. Oh, I forgot to mention for MHI. If we, as part of that Japan JLEO contract for $1 billion, I wouldn't be surprised if we buy some launches from Mitsubishi Heavy as part of that package deal. So anyway, that's all I had. And I'll just stop there. I will be back and we'll talk about the successful launch of the batch 1 Bluebirds. And yeah, well, looking forward to that. So. Thanks for everyone for joining, and we'll talk to you again soon. Take care.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.
[00:46:41] Speaker A: Listen.
[00:46:51] Speaker D: Mmm, waffles.