Anpanman - Space is Hard: Analyzing the New Glenn 3 Anomaly and Bluebird 7 Loss

[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: 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.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Hey everyone.
[00:00:28] Speaker C: Oh, what an emotional rollercoaster of a day. And I apologize for the background noise. My, my son, I just helped him set up a 3D printer, I guess a few days ago, and he's been printing things like mad. And so there's this, I guess he's making some kind of structure, so you'll hear some noise in the background. But, um, but yeah, I, I got back this afternoon. What a, as I said, what a rollercoaster of a weekend. It was wonderful to see many of you, meet you in person. And of course, you know, I got to say hello to Abel and Scott, Michael Pollack, Chris Ivory, and a few others. I even saw Dave Marshak there, which was great. But of course, you know, we went through this period of elation, Everyone hanging out together, pumped up for this event. And we saw the successful launch of Blue Origin New Glenn 3, which was an amazing sight to see in person. And of course, once the rocket had launched and they landed the booster, everyone left the viewing area and we just assumed that things would kind of go off without a hitch. But of course, As time passed and we didn't get an update on the status of Bluebird 7, which, you know, this specific mission, they were doing something in particular where they were going to have 2 burns with the second stage, which I'll talk a bit more about later. But after the second stage had coasted from the first burn, I believe it's called, you know, the first burn is to get you to sort of an apogee. And then you coast for a while. And then once you get to a certain part of the, what at that point in time is elliptical orbit, you do the second burn that gets you into a circular orbit. It appears, and we don't know for sure, but it appears that the second burn did not happen. And so the satellite is on this elliptical orbit, which at its furthest point out has 500 kilometers of height, but then at the lowest point is like 150 kilometers, which is not enough. To stay in orbit. And so, you know, over the course of a few hours and, you know, people were after coming down from adrenaline, you know, just very tired from, I think I slept like from the travel and then getting to the hotel room late, maybe I slept like an hour and a half. I, at that point, I just started getting really tired and of course I was dejected as well that you know, that the satellite didn't reach orbit. And then of course we did get the disclosure from the company that although the Blue Origin mission for the booster, the first stage booster was successful, the second stage obviously did not perform as intended. And as a result, because of the elliptical orbit, they would have to, because FM-2 does not have It is heavy, number one, and number two, because it doesn't have enough propulsion that they would just deorbit the satellite. And so that's kind of where we are. It's unfortunate, but as I wrote some notes this afternoon, I thought about it a bit more and I had a very brief conversation with the company as well to talk about a little bit of what happened today and some some of the different insights, which I'll share here. But yeah, I think it's a stark reminder that space is hard. And so I think oftentimes people who are, who either have an interest in space or are invested in stocks, when it's not your company and something goes wrong for another company, oftentimes you'll see people come out and make snarky comments. And, you know, I probably, if I were to go back on my feed, I'm sure that I've had snarky comments here or there. But I think, you know, obviously when something happens for your company, then it sucks. And so that's what's happening today. There's a ton of people out of the woodwork who, whether it's I told you so's or boo Origin, you know, you shouldn't have gone with those guys. This is part of the process, right? And SpaceX, as they continue to iterate Starship, and I hope they ultimately get to some level of success. And of course Rocket Lab is going to be testing Neutron. There's going to be setbacks and that's part of this. I will say, so keeping that in mind that space is hard, the margin of error is very small, right? And Once you throw stuff out in space, it's hard to— within certain parameters you can recover, but outside of those it's hard. And so this satellite in particular, this was an SDA Space Force mission, one of 2 satellites, and it was not built to get raised or have the propulsion for an anomaly this big. So things can and they do go wrong. And I guess it's important to remember that, you know, ASD SpaceMobile was not at fault here. Uh, Blue Origin, they unfortunately, you know, this is a new platform. And I think perhaps some of us, um, I myself, I will, I'll just speak for myself. Like, as I flew down to Cape Canaveral, um, it kind of dawned on me and when I was on the plane that, uh, oh, there's actually quite a bit more risk here. Um, even though I think everyone was focused on the booster.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: The first stage, the second stage, I think most people kind of view that as, oh, gimme, like it's going to be just fine. But when you kind of go back and look at what the technology that's required to get a second burn after a coast, so there's some things that can go wrong. And so what this means is Blue Origin's going to have to go analyze this and fix it. And they did have You know, with New Glenn 1, when the first stage booster, you know, they didn't have a reignition on that rocket, which obviously then they lost the booster, but they went back and learned. I think they took like 7 corrective actions. And then of course that led to the success of New Glenn 2. And then that New Glenn 2 booster was reused here. So So yeah, this is part of the process. And, but going back to AST SpaceMobile, prior to this, the company was 6 for 6. And for all intents and purposes, perhaps they're still, they still have an unblemished record because this satellite was lost not due to their actions, but they're still 6 for 6. And I guess we just don't count 7 because it never got a chance to perform, which is quite sad to think about. But let's, you know, I took some notes today and as I was flying back and drifting in and out of sleep, I thought about, you know, what are the negatives of this? So we'll go through the negatives first and then we'll talk about the positives. But, you know, I think it's good to have a balanced point of view. Obviously the stock is down after hours or pre-market. I think it's down to like $75, so down, call it 12% from the close on Friday, which I think is somewhat appropriate. I mean, it's, you know, obviously this puts into question Blue Origin's ability to deliver payloads successfully. But as I said, this is part of a process. But once you kind of start peeling back the layers of the onions, it can either go One way, which is good, or it could go another way, which is detrimental, right? And so let's talk about the negatives. So today, as I mentioned before, Blue Origin, you know, we had a second stage failure. And so the booster performed and it landed the first stage, and then the second stage separated properly and it got the first burn to get to a proper apogee, but then it failed. And then after coasting and getting to the right spot, it did not have a second burn, which would have correct, you know, got the right pedigree, which then would have made the orbit circular. There's speculation out there, like, you know, after the first burn, there was some period of time where the booster coasts. And when it coasts, it can freeze. You know, there's things that can happen. If there was a leak, for example, and, you know, you had some propellant that froze, then it would be hard to reignite.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:20] Speaker C: And so that could be a potential problem or it could be something else. But what we do know, of course, is that Bluebird 7 was not put in a proper circular orbit. And as a result, it will need to be deorbited. And so that's obviously a negative. Certain parts of the mission were successful, but the ultimate goal of delivering customer payload to the right orbit, that was a failure. And so I think, let me see here. I think the FAA commented. Let's see. The FAA statement says the FAA is aware that Blue Origin New Glenn 3 experienced a mishap during second stage flight sequence following a successful launch. The FAA notified NASA, the NTSB, the US Space Force about the classification of the incident. Contact Blue Origin for additional details. So I think they're waiting for Blue Origin to get more details on what exactly happened. And then, you know, depending on the severity or, you know, if it's, if it's a minor issue or if it's a pretty major issue, uh, that will determine how long a potential investigation might take place. So just to give people an example, um, the first stage booster for New Glenn 1, I think when that failed, that was, let me look here. I think that was like January 16th. And then the FAA had an investigation that was closed out on March 28th. And so again, I mentioned before that that took like 7 corrective actions. And so that was like a 2-month investigation. And so here I would expect probably something like 1 to 2-month investigation. And then Or it could be faster. I mean, it depends. If it's something minor, it could be pretty fast, or if it's something major, it could be very long. And so depending on that outcome, that will determine when Blue Origin will fly again. And, you know, that may or may not impact AST's timeline. I think it's important to note that, you know, now Blue Origin has 2 boosters. And so 2 first stage boosters. And so given that one has flown twice, and of course the other one hasn't flown yet, but once they kind of nail down this refurbishment process, I think David Limp had talked about a 30-day turnaround. Now that you have 2 working boosters and they probably are going to add another, if they have enough second stage boosters, then that means that you can Essentially fly every 2 weeks. Once again, you have cadence nailed down and you obviously have to have a lot of the second stage boosters, which I believe they have like 6 or 7. I could be wrong there. But anyway, in terms of getting to a fully ramped cadence, I think David Lipp during the video ahead of today's launch, I think he had mentioned something around trying to get 8 to 10 launches this year, which is pretty aggressive. And of course, you know, if he says 8 or 10, as we know in space, you probably discount that by 20, 30%. But now that they have this issue, you know, you'll have to have the investigation and then resolution of it, and then they'll be able to fly again. I guess an important thing to note here is that this was a certification flight for Blue Origin. And so in some respects, this was a test flight. for Blue Origin in order to prove itself to the US Department of Defense. Also, because it was a test flight, I'm assuming that the flight was probably discounted pretty heavily. And so FM-2 or BB-7, this was a test as well for that satellite. And so what I understand is that I believe, of course, BB-6 was successfully launched by ISRO. It's like out in space. It's And that BB-6 and BB-7 are SDA satellites. And so from what I understand, like the loss of this satellite doesn't actually impact the work that the company's doing with the SDA. And this satellite in particular was actually built as a backup. So if BB-6 had failed, BB-7 would be the backup. And so the fact that this one's lost is not, it's not, you know, material to the work that the company is doing with, with the government. Um, one question I did ask company, I was like, well, if they, was this intended to be used as a pair? Like, would you, um, you know, is it needed for, for what you were planning to do? And the answer was no. Uh, when asked, you know, if perhaps, you know, the government will order another BB-7 to replace it? The answer is no, because they've actually moved on to another design. And so it seems, it appears that they're working on another, you know, another design for the government. So take what you will from that. I don't know if that means perhaps like another government shells in, you know, an actual, you know, constellation, separate constellation might be in order, or maybe they're doing more testing and And so they moved on to another design. And I think that's one of the things about LEO where when you improve satellites, you can iterate and you just keep launching these things versus if you launch a satellite to GEO, a lot of time and energy. And of course, GEO satellites have to be built to be rock solid and to survive out in that harsh environment. But once you go send one up, if it fails, then you're you know, that's tough. It's pretty hard to recover from that. Whereas LEO, when you put a satellite up, if it doesn't work out or if it gets put in the wrong orbit, you know, you bring it down and of course you have a bunch of other planned, right? And so as you, for example, iterate and you make more satellites, you know, you can adjust these things or improve them. And so But what I was saying before about Blue Origin not meeting certification, I believe that this means that the US government won't be using Blue Origin until they can meet certification. And so I think they'll have to, you know, I think they have to fly 2 more successful missions. And so what ironically that actually frees up more Blue Origin capacity, which after today, I know there's plenty of people who are like, well, I don't want to use Blue Origin. But I think it's important to understand that this company's gone a long way. Like they obviously have demonstrated now the successful launch and landing of 2 first stage boosters. And then of course we have this second stage issue, which they are going to fix, right? I think Cook had pointed out that, you know, with Jeff Bezos's backing the company, and this is part of the iterative process, like they will learn from this and they will improve the performance of the second stage. Now, of course, like that calls into question, you know, would you send up a batch of 6 Bluebirds or 8 Bluebirds on a Blue Origin New Glenn, even though they haven't demonstrated successful delivery of FM-2 BB-7? And the answer is probably no. I think you would wait for another commercial payload to go up successfully before you would go. And so recall that there's an STA already in existence for New Glenn 4, New Glenn 5, and New Glenn 6. And those are expected to, you know, after this investigation is done, those 3 are going to fly next. And I believe one of them was for lunar lander, which I'm guessing that's going to get delayed based off of what happened today. My guess is that the next payload that is going to go up is going to be a payload of LEO, you know, the old Kuiper, but Amazon LEO satellites. So that will go up next. And then if that's successful, then you're probably going to see, you know, at that point, 6 Bluebirds go up. But remember the next launches that we actually have are the next 2 are going to be on Falcon 9. And so I think The timing of exactly when Blue Origin will have New Glenn ready will actually be kind of spot on. If you assume like a 2-month investigation and that gets done and they launch Amazon LEO, a batch there, then we would be after that. Then that would come after, you know, that might actually come right after we've already launched 2 Falcon 9s of 6 Bluebirds in total. So that might actually work out okay. However, so that's like in a positive scenario, but in a negative scenario, or if things got really negative, let's say Blue Origin is grounded for a longer period of time due to something more, a more critical issue that has been uncovered and say the investigation lasts longer and maybe it takes more time to fix, then Then that could push launch cadence further back, right? Because in the end, we can backfill more Falcon 9 launches, but each Falcon 9 can only carry 3 Bluebirds versus 6 to 8 for New Glenn. And so if New Glenn is offline for, I don't know, the rest of the year, then that could be, that could impact obviously the target to hopefully get to, you know, 45 satellites by the end of the year. So that would be the negative scenario, right? Like AST, they can buy more Falcon 9s, but then it's more expensive, number one. And then number two, getting to your near-term goals is going to be tougher just given that, you know, it just can't carry as many as New Glenn. So the other thing that was negative today is, you know, the change in guidance. So as of maybe 2 weeks ago or so, I think the company was kind of telling institutional investors, because this is what I'd heard, and then also, yeah, it got some level of confirmation that they were hoping to have the first batch done by the end of April. And then of course today with the release, they said 30 days from now they will have their first batch. So that puts us basically like mid-May, or May 19th or so. And so that timeline has obviously slipped by 2 to 3 weeks, which is, I think, for people who, you know, obviously the stock has come down because of the market and of course Rakuten selling and all these other things. And then you, and by the way, like Rakuten, as I mentioned before, like they're not on the board, they don't have material non-public information. They're in financial, you know, they have financial issues, so they had to sell for their own reasons. But, you know, that leading up to then, of course, you know, what would've been a positive event, which is Bluebird 7 deploying successfully. Now that it hasn't deployed successfully, now you've got some downward pressure on the stock. And then of course, like the company is talking about the first batch taking a bit longer. So 30 days from now, if you say like that's May 19th, then you're probably looking at the first Falcon 9 launch being, call it the second half of June. And the next Falcon launch right after that is probably the first half of June, or sorry, first half of July. And so that puts us on a pretty tight timeframe. I think the company, of course, originally was saying 45 to 60 satellites. And then 45 satellites. And then today they kind of softened language a bit. They said approximately 45 satellites. So I think that's probably a stretch goal. My guess is like, if everything goes right, they could possibly get to 45, but I would, my expectations would be that you're probably looking at something, you know, under, just under 45. Like if it's 40 or 41 or 42, you know, we'll see. But yeah, I mean, that's just, I think obviously there are some people who are upset about that. And of course it's frustrating, right? Because after you have this event where your launch provider doesn't get your payload to orbit, and then of course the company, it's taking longer to get that first batch done, then I think, yeah, people are going to be upset. And I will say, like, I understand people's, you know, looking online, there's a lot of people who are exasperated and they're upset about obviously the launch, you know, why did we go with Blue Origin? Why did, you know, why is the company, why is it taking so long for the first batch? And as I said before, like, it's, I think it takes a certain kind of crazy to be a space investor because If you look across any of the companies, whether it's SpaceX, you know, Blue Origin, AST SpaceMobile, Rocket Lab, Intuitive Machines, I mean, any number of companies, like there's going to be delays, right? And that's part of this dynamic of putting forward the most optimistic projections internally and externally because you want people to work against that timeline, understanding that they will slip. Most likely, right? And so I think in the history of this company, obviously what they've accomplished is amazing. And I think sometimes, you know, when Cook talks about price, nothing moves sentiment more than price. When the price is doing well, people remember the good things. And then when you have a negative event like today where obviously it's out of the company's hands, but then, you know, lopped onto that, it's like, okay, well the first batch is going to take a bit longer. People lose it. Right? And they get upset. And for those people who have been invested with the company for a really long time, this is not something new. It's just part of being invested in space and you've got to have patience and understand, you know, for a company that's solving really difficult problems, you know, is it something chronic and is there something nefarious? Like, is the company doing things where they're just outright lying, or do they actually believe what they're projecting? And then ultimately things go sideways or they come up with their— they find problems and it takes longer. And I think if you are in the camp that you think the company's lying, you think like they're not trustworthy, then I have news for you. You should not be invested in this company. And that goes for any public company or private company. Like if you Do due diligence and you meet with management and you feel like you can't trust the person that you're sitting across from, like perhaps they're just not, you know, maybe they have no morals, right? Then you should definitely not invest in that company because you are, at the end of the day, like you're investing with management. And so with AST SpaceMobile, for example, I have a high degree of confidence and belief in both Abel, Scott, and the rest of the team. But I also recognize like what they're doing has never been done before and it's really hard. And today was a stark reminder of why it's hard, right? Like you can do a lot of things right and something that's out of your hands goes wrong and that's it. Like you lose a satellite. That sucks. And there's also like, you know, when something like this happens today, you have this extra appreciation for a company like SpaceX with Falcon 9. It's like, wow, they've done this a lot. And whenever Whenever you've gone to launch BlueWalker 3 or the Block 1 satellites, like there's not this, obviously, you know, that things can go wrong, but it's almost like flying a plane, which I mean, I'll talk about my experience going flying back home today, but when you are using SpaceX, you feel pretty confident. I mean, for Falcon 9, no, Starship is different because obviously they're still iterating that. like they're not going to take up commercial payloads anytime soon. But, um, but when you're on Falcon 9, like you understand the risks, but you're also, you're also betting on that, that vehicle because of its, its flight history and it's been very successful. And eventually Blue Origin will get there. And ISRO, for example, LVM3, you know, they've had, uh, 9 successful launches and that, that platform has been very great, um, versus, um, some of their other platforms, which have had recent failures, right? And so as with any of these things, like there can be things that go wrong and with Blue Origin, they're eventually going to get there. And they've given what they've accomplished so far, it seems like the rate of change for them is in the right direction, but obviously they've got quite a bit more to learn. But yeah, so I think Besides obviously Bluebird 7 not getting to orbit and then having to be deorbited, the guidance change where they're 30 days to the first batch from today, like that was a big change. And then of course, you know, the softening of the language around 45 satellites, which I think, you know, if everything goes right, they could still get there, but I would say that's probably Lower probability. And so the question now is like, do they get to 38, 39, 41, 42? Who knows, right? Like, but it's going to depend on things that they don't have a handle on just yet, which is for Blue Origin New Glenn. Once they get more information about what happened, is it a minor fix or is it a major fix? Then they'll probably have better color around that. I would point out, I think earnings for the company are going to be in the next— actually, let me look here. So Q1 earnings update is going to be sometime May 12th. So by then, like, we will get an update about that first batch. Maybe it happens to coincide with earnings, but yeah, that's When I saw some people posting like, well, there's no catalyst, there's nothing positive to look forward to. Well, there is. I mean, it's another, you know, it's another 30 days, but you've got the first batch coming and of course another launch. And so yeah, the stock's going to, you know, the stock rightfully should be down. Is it overdone? I think SPAC Man posted a pretty good write-up about how you know, this losing one satellite in the grand scheme of things, if you're doing like a DCF analysis and, you know, the financial impact, it could be 2, 3, 4%. But of course the market in terms of sentiment will take the stock down further. And part of that of course is the uncertainty around Blue Origin New Glenn. Like, does that vehicle go through a long review process and fix, or is it A pretty short one. And so that's going to, that obviously is going to impact your ability to meet the target for 40, call it 40, 45 satellites in the year. So those are the negatives. And I think that's what everybody pretty much is focused on right now. And obviously on Twitter, and I haven't even looked at Reddit, but you have people who are rightfully upset And are, you know, emotionally, you know, in a bad place and they're lashing out at the company to some degree. They're lashing out at Blue Origin, which at least for me, like I'm not upset with Blue Origin. It sucks. And it's not like they, their engineers went out and were like, hey, we're going to try to fail here. They have every incentive to be successful here, right? Because like we're a paying customer. And then on top of that, you know, this was a certification flight for them to do government work and they failed. So they're going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what went wrong. Hopefully they'll find out quickly and, you know, we'll see another Blue Origin New Glenn 4, which will likely, my guess is take a group of Amazon LEO satellites up and see, hopefully that will be, successful. But moving on. So what are the positives, if any, from today? Well, I think for those people who follow space closely, in any launch that has some degree of success, there's going to be, well, even complete failures, there's going to be learnings, right? And so from Blue Origin New Glenn, you know, with any rocket program, you're going to push what's possible. And learn and improve. And so from the failure of the second stage, you know, it sounds like it did get pretty far. They got an initial burn and then they coasted and then unfortunately the second burn didn't happen. They'll learn from that and they'll figure out what went wrong and they'll make improvements and they'll hopefully get it the next time.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:05] Speaker C: And so that's a positive. Another positive is that AST learned something today. Obviously, you know, in particular, FM2 was a test satellite. As I mentioned before, it was a— is one of 2 test satellites. And so from what I understand, FM2 was a backup to FM1. So if the ISRO FM1 failed, ironically, then FM2 was going to get backed up. But in fact, ISRO and FM1 was a success, and then it ended up being Blue Origin FM2. Failing to reach orbit. And so that said, like, you know, the company with the data will learn from this. And obviously the next satellites are going to be much lighter than FM2. They're composites. And so, you know, does the company make some changes or is there perhaps, you know, this change in timing for batch? This is me speculating, by the way. Are they going to make some adjustments to the satellites where Perhaps like, oh, maybe we'll put some extra propellant. And so if we're ever in a situation like this where there's a failure in a second burn, then because it's a lighter satellite and if you add more propellant or maybe additional thrusters, maybe there is a contingency plan where you can save these things. But these are learning about future mitigation. Is probably going to be a big focus for them too. And so as they think about different scenarios, this is going to be an important case study for them and something for them to be prepared for next time if it, unfortunately, if it does happen again. The other thing is that AST and Blue Origin, they learned to work together for the first time. So integrating a payload, I think it was referred to one of One of the AST employees, I think Kevin Chen had posted or someone, but they talked about how it was a huge learning curve in terms of interfacing with Blue Origin. There was hundreds of hours put into integrating Bluebird 7 into Blue Origin's fairing and obviously making sure all the systems worked. And I'm sure, Obviously the company went through the same thing with Israel as well. But when you do that, you go through it the first time, that puts steps and processes in place where the next time will be faster. And so that's another experience that's gained. And so that's another positive. I would also say, this is something that Katze had pointed out, Bluebird 6 and Bluebird 7, were also satellites that were used to help stand up production lines. And so by building Bluebird 6 and Bluebird 7, we actually learned how to build this next generation of spacecraft. And so out of that process, we got government work. Bluebird 6 obviously was successful and it's operating nominally and it's meeting the contract requirements that were laid out from whether it was the SDA, DIU, Department of Defense. And from what I understand, I don't think the failure of BB-7 impacts those as it was a backup. So, you know, the benefit of obviously getting, having BB-6 and standing up the production line to build BB-7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, That's a positive. Let's see, another thing. There have been some questions about this, but we did insure this satellite because it was a backup and it was on a new vehicle. So I believe the company insured this satellite for more than what it cost to build, because from what I understand, you can actually, depending on how much premium you're willing to pay, just like any home insurance, you can overinsure your house or you can underinsured, and I believe the company overinsured it. So they will get reimbursed for it. That said, they will not get reimbursed for launch, but from what I understand, it is customary in the industry where if you do lose a launch, then you typically are credited for another one. And so in a weird way, this could be By getting credited another Blue Origin launch. This one was taking up one satellite, but in the future, you know, obviously when the vehicle is stable and more developed, the future one will carry 6 or 8 of these things. So in some respects, you know, there's, you actually have a tiny, or not a tiny, but an economic benefit, but they will get credit for it. Let's see. As I mentioned before, I did ask like, you know, would it make sense to make another Bluebird 7? Like, will the government need it? And it sounds like they've actually moved on to the next design for the government. So, so yeah, because VB-6 is successful, you know, that's fulfilled the mission requirements. And then apparently there's more work going on and they moved on to the next generation. So those are kind of the positives related to this. I guess I'll, I'd talk about a few other things. First, just as a reminder, 'cause sometimes like when you're in this negative, you know, doom spiral, you kind of forget like why you own something and what the next catalysts are. And if you like listen to some of the, read some of the, what people are putting to for engagement farming, it's like there's no catalyst for the next You know, 30 days or 60 days. Well, just a reminder, you know, supplemental coverage from space, that FCC application should be approved any day now. So, you know, I don't know the exact timing of it, but we're well overdue. And as I mentioned before, Chairman Carr talked about this being a 3-player market and specifically talked about AST SpaceMobile. So Clearly it's top of mind and that could, that could come. And if Chirag Kar was like a generous guy, he would approve this on Monday, just given everything that's going on. But who knows? But it's coming. On one hand, you know, May, the May batch shipment is unfortunate in terms of it being delayed, but it's also a May batch shipment, which is, you know, 2 to 3 weeks from now according to the company. So So yeah, it's not that far off. Let's see, as I mentioned before, you know, we've got earnings update, which will be, at least Bloomberg is saying May 12th. And so that's not far off. And, you know, we'll get quite a few updates from them in regard to like various programs that are going on. And so that's something to look forward to. The other thing, of course, is that if the May batch shipment happens, then that means that Falcon 9 launch is probably going to happen in June. So that'd be another launch to look forward to. Less drama, more boring, which boring is good. But I did see some people saying, you know, oh, you guys messed up. You should have booked this with SpaceX. And it's like, well, we are booked with SpaceX. And so I don't know what the issue or what the point was there. But anyway, I guess a few nuggets. or one nugget that was interesting. So a few of us, this is for a little bit of hopium, a few of us have actually met up with Michael Pollack, who runs the government business. And he didn't say anything in terms of material non-public information, but he was happy to meet Space Mob. And he talked specifically about the fact that he's working on a number of really great things that We would be very happy with, and that his job is to, you know, from a, and for those that don't know, like he deals with government programs. And so all the work around defense, SDA, stuff like that, that's kind of under his purview. But yeah, he was very bullish and positive on what's in the hopper and what's coming soon. But obviously he didn't tell us anything, but, you know, he was all smiles and we were quite happy. But then on the flip side, you know, FM-1 and FM-2, FM-2, which is BV-7, the fact that we lost that satellite, I think someone had saw him at a bar later because I think he was out for a flight too. And this was before the formal announcement went out, but it was pretty clear he was sad about the fact that, you know, the satellite didn't reach orbit. And so, yeah, I mean, I think it's important to take a step back and recognize all the work that the people at AST SpaceMobile and Blue Origin had put into this mission, whether it was the satellite, whether it was the New Glenn rocket, but also integrating the two. And so to lose a payload is a pretty big deal, right? I think from, like, if you and I feel bad about it, imagine the people who put hundreds of hours into it and especially You know, if you're an AST SpaceMobile employee, all that work, like it's down the drain, it's gone. But of course, you know, you can't think that way. You gotta, that what FM2 was, all the hours and time that were put, you know, resources that were put into it, like that was already done. Like they're already working on, um, Bluebird 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and so on. And so, you know, you've got to let go of it and just keep moving forward. Right. And I think for Blue Origin, I think someone mentioned that they had at the airport, they had run into one of the employees and they seemed pretty, well, they were happy obviously that the booster was successful, but they were quite sad that the mission, the payload didn't, wasn't delivered. And so yeah, it was mixed for them. Right. And they feel obviously bad about losing a customer payload. And that I think also, you know, there's been some criticisms on Twitter, like how perhaps the Blue Origin execs maybe didn't come out and apologize or say this or that, the other. I think it's a bit early for that, right? Like obviously there's an investigation that's going to happen and there's, they're under some types of restrictions, right? And so You probably don't want to say anything until you know exactly what had happened. And then, and my guess is, I don't know if they've, they know exactly what have happened, what has happened. And you'd want to do that hat in hand and go to the, and I'm sure that they've apologized to Abel and Scott, but to do that publicly, it's, I guess they could do it, but also, What does that buy them, right? Like, they're going to apologize publicly to AST's public shareholders or to the general public. You know, it's a concern. Like, they, excuse me, they lost the second stage and they'll probably make some type of statement at the appropriate time, but at this point they don't know what happened, right? So I would just give them some leeway, let them figure it out. And, you know, I'm sure they'll come out with a statement and apologize, but At this point, I don't know, it's just taking a step back. Like, I think it's kind of telling when you have something like this happens and you kind of look and see what people's reactions are as whether they're investors or they're from the outside looking in, or, you know, there's like, I saw today, here's a good example. I saw someone posting about like how FM2, the satellite's too heavy and they should be using lighter solar panels because then you wouldn't have an anomaly like this. And it's like, and then they're recommending a stock and it's like, really? Come on. Like, it's too, number one, it's too soon for that. Number two, you have no idea what you're talking about. Like this satellite was heavy because it's serving a specific test mission. And yeah, I guess you could use lighter solar panels. That maybe could have helped it with the proper thrusters. It could have got to the right orbit, but that's just not the mission of what the satellite is built for. But you're going to have people come in and tell you like, you know, I sold at 90 or 100. I knew this was coming, or I'm a good trader and I took profits. And I always do that because something like this could happen. And it's like, guys, come on. Like I saw the same people writing shit like that when it was at 12 and then it dropped, it pulled back to 9. When it was at 20, it pulled back to, you know, actually when it was at 20, it didn't really pull back, but when it went to like 39 and then it pulled back to like, you know, 22, 23, there was a lot of I told you so's or, yeah, I mean, there's like, people are pretty ugly too. Like there's this guy, Coming out and saying like, I'm a scammer. And so they were, he was like, you said that the company was going to have a batch ready by the end of April. And then they came out today and they said mid, you know, in 30 days. And it's like, yeah, I was wrong. As of 2 weeks ago, it was my working assumption that the batch would be ready. And based off of how things were going, I thought that that was going to be true, but I was wrong. And so does that make me a scammer? What am I scamming? Like what, I guess over the years, maybe there's like some people who aren't familiar with the, I guess my history with this company and my investment. But I will say this, like over the fat— over the 5 to 6 years, like yeah, I've been wrong on a lot of things. I've been right on some things and fortunately I've been right enough where the stock has worked out. But, you know, for people, and this is coming from a guy who I don't think is an AST investor, they claim they were like, they're making these posts where they're like, I'm selling all my AST shares and I'm buying this other stock because they're like pushing this other stock. And I guess they're doing it at a period of time when people are feeling vulnerable, which there's like a few accounts out there that will like try to pressure you to buy something. And especially like if your stock is down, it's like, see, I told you. Or like, oh, the Rocket Lab AST SpaceMobile flip, flipping is happening. Rocket Lab's going to be higher than AST. I told you so. And it's like, yeah, I think people kind of revel in others' misery and I think we're all guilty of it to some degree. You know, it's like if you see a stock that you were looking at before and then you decide to pass and then it goes down, it's like, haha, see, I was right. I think people have that kind of attitude, but yeah, it's like pretty, some people are pretty toxic about it. And, you know, what I, I'm not, I don't let that get to me because like this weekend when I went down, of course before everything happened, but even after everything happened, people were super friendly and generous and gracious with each other. We were just happy to hang out and meet each other. And I think part of it is like when you go through this journey where you have a high conviction in a stock and you've ridden the highs and ridden the lows together, that's a very unique bond. It's not like something where, you know, you have camaraderie with coworkers or even friends in college or whatever it is, right? Like having, going through the financial ups and downs and going through the psychological you know, the psychological testing that occurs, it doesn't, I don't know, it builds a very unique type of relationship with people, especially like when obviously when you come out of that and you're successful. And so when I was at the launch event, like there were people coming up to me, I guess they kind of figured it out, but they were coming up to me, you know, thanking me for all these years of helping them you know, understand the investment and then having the conviction to stick with it. And to me, that was like the most rewarding experience of it all, right? Where over the years, like I've gotten emails from people or chats and people talking about their unique personal experiences of how this company has changed their lives. And obviously it's a high-risk investment, right? And so having the ability to you know, do your own due diligence, listen to others as well to give you different perspectives. But at the end of the day, it's like your choice, right? Like you, you're the one who pulls the trigger, who buys shares or may sell shares. But for a lot of you, it's like you bought and you went through the ups and downs and you held with conviction. And through all that period of time, you know, the emotional strain of like, oh, I should have sold here, I should have bought here, You know, it's like those stories where people say the best investors are those who die and they just hold the shares into perpetuity. And then, you know, I guess their estate does well because they, those people just never thought about it, right? Because they had passed away. And so, you know, if the person had held Nvidia, they would've been, or they did hold it, but, you know, they made a ton of money. But But I think in the case of AST, you know, we have this unique bond and it's tough. It's tough. Like today I'm seeing all these comments of people just totally reveling in the fact that the stock is down and it's like, I told you about this company. You know, there's, it's like the old tired tropes of You know, how the company's risky and all these, all these, like, all the FUD comes back out and like, oh, how are they going to compete against SpaceX? And what about this Amazon news? And it's just like, guys, I've seen it all. Like, I'm not swayed by any of it. I know that it's hard and yeah, the company's going to get through it. This is one satellite. It wasn't their fault. There's one satellite that they lost out of what will be what, 200, 300 eventually? Yeah, it's going to happen. And thank God it happened. I mean, I guess another silver lining is like, and people will say like, oh, that's copium, but it's true. It's like, thank God Blue Origin, you know, is working out the kinks now. We lost one satellite. It was a test satellite for SDA. And it wasn't a critical satellite, but yeah, we're going to pick up and move on, right? Like we're already building. We can't even worry about the fact that we lost Bluebird 7. Like we already have 8, 9, and 10 that are being worked on, 11, 12, 13, and up to 30, what, 32 right now? And that 32 number in terms of production is Microns, right? But we have the composite rings, I guess 7 were delivered last week. And so that would be 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. And so Bluebird 7 through, sorry, Bluebird 14 through 20 are currently going through integration or eventually will go through integration. So yeah, I mean, today sucks. There's no sugarcoating and there are going to be days like this, right? Where you're going to have setbacks. And if you're an investor in a space company, it's typical. I think someone, you know, it's not a name that I followed closely, but Obviously everyone knows like Intuitive Machines where not only did they, I mean, this is Intuitive Machines' fault. They tipped a lander, they tipped a second lander. And you would think like that would've been kind of the end of the ropes for the company, right? Like it went from low 20s to it traded down to, I think it like $6.50 or so. And that was in March of 2025. Whereas now it's hitting an all-time high of like $2,750 or so. So yeah, this stuff happens, whether it's in your control, which was Intuitive Machines, like some parts of that were in their control, maybe perhaps some others weren't. But then, yeah, for today, it wasn't in our control. Like Blue Origin unfortunately didn't have a, you know, they had a mishap on the second stage and they're going to go back to the drawing board and fix it. And we're going to, you know, tomorrow the employees at AST Space and Mobile are going to wake up. I mean, there's a night shift working right now and they're going to continue to work on that first batch and they're going to get it out. And, you know, I think as we all know, like in production hell, it takes time to get things right. But as you iterate, you get better and you get faster, just like whether that was at SpaceX or Tesla or any number of companies. And so That's just part of the process. So anyway, I am, let me just take a look and see if there's any questions. By the way, I'm now, I'm, it's starting to hit me. I'm getting tired again, but let's see. Let's, let me go through some of these questions. So can SpaceX Starship save our cadence? When Starship becomes operational in 2027, it could fit more than 12 satellites on one launch. Conceptually, yeah, it could. I think once it's operational in 2027, they could use SpaceX Starship, but I think the company for business planning purposes, they want to have a diversity of suppliers, right? And so they're using Falcon 9. They have ISRO, of course. They put a lot of big bets on Blue Origin New Glenn. So obviously, you know, we should all be rooting for that platform. But can they use Starship? Yeah, they could. But I'm not sure. I mean, ultimately Starship, I guess in, when, if they're going to put up commercial payloads, they have to have, I guess they're going to have some type of configuration where it's not just like the Pez dispenser.
[00:53:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:58] Speaker C: Because obviously we can't use this PEZ dispenser. And so, yeah, I think Starship could take our satellites up and it would be very cost-effective. But just as this person points out, like, could Starship save our cadence? Starship also has to become successful, right? Like they're going through iterations too. And so Someone had said to me today, I think it was maybe Tut was saying, you know, if Blue Origin was public and they went through this, if the stock was public and they went through what had happened today, like how much would the stock be down? And my response to him was like, oh, I think Blue Origin might be down like 7%, 5%, because the reuse of the first stage booster was a big deal, right? A reused booster, that is, or a refurbished booster. And so yeah, the second stage anomaly is not great, but they'll probably fix it. But it's kind of accepted, right? Like when you have rocket failures, you're going to learn from them and it's part of the process. And I think for Rocket Lab, like I hope to God that Neutron goes off without hitch, but if they experience an issue and it's not successful, I wouldn't expect Rocket Lab to go down 20% or something like that. I think people were going to have reasonable expectations that any new program like that is going to have setbacks. They're going to have wins and setbacks and delays. So, so yeah, let's see. Let's see. Arthur saying there were supposed— there's supposed to be new agreements signed and announced next week from SATCO. I think so. The head of Satellite Europe, Satellite Connect Europe, said that they are working on some new agreements, but I don't think they gave a sense of timing. But they said that they're working on them. It could be new or it could be coming soon. So I don't think they said like next week. Let's see. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Yes, absolutely. CEO of Lids. I feel like if you're invested in space sector, you need to accept delays. Literally zero space companies hit their long-term strategic milestones on time. Yes, 100%. Like if you, if you want to invest in a company that hits milestones and deadlines and forecasts, you should not invest in SpaceX. Don't invest in Rocket Lab. Don't invest in AST. Intuitive Machines, Voyager, any of these companies, right? Because there's always going to be delays, whether it's in the company's hands or not. That's just the nature of the beast, right? Like, that's why companies like Google and Meta and OpenAI, all these companies, they don't do stuff in space because it's hard, right? So if you're invested in space, yeah, You've got, you've got to accept the fact that there will be delays.
[00:57:07] Speaker A: 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 SpaceMobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: We're doing something very, very big, and I think with this technology we can really affect a billion lives. AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular broadband connectivity directly from space to the everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn on their phone and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user to have to worry about the technology. You need to even to know that it's connected by satellite. Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership with the MMOs.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: Listen.
[00:58:11] Speaker B: Mmm, waffles.