Anpanman - Space is Hard: The New Glenn Anomaly and the SpaceMobile Pivot

[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:11] 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.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Hey everyone, never a dull day in space. Uh, I'm using my headset here, so I want to make sure you guys can hear me. Everyone, the folks can give me a thumbs up, let me know if I'm coming in okay, or I guess if someone in the chat can tell me if I'm doing all right. But anyway, um, let's see. Yeah, unfortunately some bad news tonight. there's, there's no positive spin on this, unfortunately. Um, Blue Origin New Glenn 4 had an anomaly. It looks like something ignited around the engines. And, um, I think the most important thing is, you know, for folks to wait and see what exactly, um, what exactly the investigation finds out, or, you know, as opposed to, I guess there's like rampant speculation online of what happened and perhaps like, There was even more damage. But yeah, this evening there was a static fire of New Glenn 4 ahead of the Amazon LEO launch. And of course, you guys saw the fireball, the vehicle blew up. And so it was a pretty spectacular explosion and it took out most of SLC-36. And so that launch pad is out of commission. My guess is that It's going to be months, perhaps longer for that launchpad to be brought back to service. However, they were building another launchpad nearby, which was going to accommodate the current 7x2 New Glenn, but also the bigger 9x4 New Glenn. And so I think there's this perspective that when they rebuild or when they build a pad, rebuild the pad, they're not going to rebuild the one that just got destroyed. They're going to focus on the new one because obviously there's no rubble or wreckage that you need to remove. And so you're going to have to, you can go much faster by building that one. And then of course, you know, they'll, in parallel, they'll rebuild this one. But what does this mean for Blue Origin New Glenn? Well, I can tell you that Blue Origin New Glenn is not going to fly for probably the rest of this year is my guess. That's just me speculating, but I would not be optimistic that it'll fly again this year because even if the original, you know, Never Tell Me the Odds booster, you could use that and some of the other second stages, they're going to have to rebuild the pad, right? But I think the key thing is understanding what happened here. And I think it's really important to take a step back, take a deep breath, Everyone do it together with me. It's important to understand that these rocket programs, like this is part of the process. I hate to say it, but this is space and it's hard and you're going to have setbacks like this where you learn. You learn from mistakes or iterations in the design and then something doesn't work out and then you go back to the drawing board, you fix it and you go back. and you do it again, right? And that's what SpaceX went through in the Falcon 9 program. That's what they're currently going through with Starship, which, you know, they're obviously trying to solve probably the hardest problem out there, which is returning a second stage after, you know, going through orbit and coming in very quickly, right? Because that's very different than landing a booster. So I think it's important that people you know, this is part of investing in space. This is why these companies trade at high valuations, right? Because it's hard to pull this stuff off. And once you do, the rewards are high, but the risks are high as well. And so this is just part of being a space investor. Like you're going to have these setbacks. Even, you know, we saw in all its glory Starship, you know, end its mission in a fireball last week. And, you know, people have kind of Become accustomed to that. And unfortunately in this instance, there is launchpad damage, right? And if folks recall like the first Starship test, that first Starship actually destroyed the launchpad. And so they had to go in and reinforce it and come up with a different design. And that took time. And so all this stuff takes time. But that said, it's important. I think Cook, I see Cook in the audience. Cook said it well. AST SpaceMobile is not Blue Origin. We are not the same company. Obviously, you know, there are some economic and future business ties together, and we are going to rely heavily on Blue Origin New Glenn. At least that was plan A. Plan B is to book more Falcon 9 launches. And so from what I understand, you know, whether it's 4 or 5 Falcon 9 launches, I believe that's what we have booked for this year, and then the company can book additional launches, right? And so it will take a little more time because Falcon 9 can only carry 3 satellites at a time. There's also the conversations that are going on with ULA Vulcan, or not conversations, we've signed something with ULA Vulcan Centaur, which can take 5 satellites at a time. And so the question is, when does that vehicle become available? Which I think we for this year are on a standby. So if any cargo doesn't show up, then we can basically slot right in to manifest. But yeah, for all intents and purposes, I think, you know, in the grand scheme of things, and this is where perspective comes into play, if you look at where things are for the company for 2027, 2028, 2029, you know, do things probably shift by 2, 3 months? Yeah, absolutely. They're going to have to shift.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: And I think the company will, In an upcoming update for Q2, they'll have to say, you know, 45 is not likely, it's going to be 30 or whatever it is, 25 to 30. And then you can move that over to, you know, the target for 45 probably ends up being sometime in Q1 or probably early Q2. And so in the grand scheme of things, like, does that impact your net present value of the business and, you know, no, not in my opinion. I think it's also important to understand like the bottlenecks that this has created. And so on the one hand, the setback with Starship, or not setback, but just ongoing testing and eventually getting to commercial cadence. So what the current playing field looks like right now is that you have Starlink direct-to-cell. There's 650 satellites up in orbit, and those obviously are very low performance. The next iteration is the V2 satellites, which is, you know, the company's hoping to get that up and launched sometime in 2028, 2029 if Starship is ready by then. And then you also have, you know, the spectrum from EchoStar that has to be integrated into handsets. And so that's kind of like the primary competitor that you're competing against. And that's the— those satellites are comparable to the Block 2 satellites, which, you know, we just sent 3 down to the Cape in April, and we've got more on the way. And so in terms of like the competitive dynamics, Starship, obviously they're having issues coming to commercial cadence. Blue Origin, it seemed like things were going great. And then of course this anomaly happened. And this is a new booster, right? This is a booster that hasn't flown. The Evertelne Yods has flown twice successfully. This one was brand new and Obviously had an anomaly, so so they'll have to do an investigation and see if, for example, this is just me speculating, but if never the tell me odds was a particular design, and then they were like, "Hey, we're going to make these improvements for this third booster." You know, then there might be some issues that they find with that third booster where they will say, "Okay, well, these are the differences between the two," and during static fire we saw these things happen, and so this is. Probably what the issue is, right? And one of the things that I'm not as familiar with, but the FAA, this is not an FAA investigation since it was a hot fire test. And so I'm not sure exactly which regulatory body this falls under, but obviously there'll be an investigation by the company and then fixes. And then the key question is how quickly can they build the second launch pad, which they were already in process of doing. And then they'll parallel this one. So I think that's going to be the bottleneck is the, you know, building the new launchpad. And so maybe one of the things that folks should do, which I will do, I mean, I guess I could just ask ChatGPT, but, you know, one of the key questions is how quickly did they build launch SLC-36?
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: But going back to what I was saying before about speculation, I think it's important that people take a deep breath and not read everything that they see online. Like there's, I'll just point this one guy out. There's this like newer guy who he's written about AST and he writes about other names as well. Interestingly, or not surprisingly, he posted, okay, he deleted the post. This guy, this guy posted something that was AI slop. And as part of it, he was saying that Falcon 9 is going to be grounded too because it's launching from SLC-36, which is completely false, right? Like, I don't even know how any AI would have hallucinated on that. But for folks that don't know, like, you know, Falcon 9 launches from, I think it's like SLC-39 and then another launch pad as well. So, you know, SpaceX has 2 launch pads, Blue Origin has one and they're working on a second one. But this guy who wrote this article, which is now deleted, it caused like people to ask like, oh, I guess Falcon 9's going to be delayed too. But no, that's not the case. Falcon 9 launches in a completely different complex. It makes absolutely zero sense that they would launch from the same launch pad. But yeah, then I saw like Eric Berger, who's this reporter and he like talks to people in the industry. And he was saying that, and by the way, I'm just like kind of sharing some of the speculation, but he was saying that, oh, there's this potential that Blue Origin just moves on from the current New Glenn and goes to New Glenn Heavy, similar to what Relativity did with Terran. If folks will recall, they were building a medium-lift rocket, or maybe it was a small-lift rocket, and then when they had an anomaly, they said, you know what, we're just not going to keep going with this one. We're going to move on to the next program. And so that's what Eric Berger is speculating. But this guy has, I will say he has put out news that has been completely wrong multiple times. And so at this point, I would just ignore what the guy is saying and just focus on what the formal statements are from the companies, whether that's Blue Origin Or obviously, you know, the administrators who are going to be investigating this, which, as I said before, I don't think this is in the purview of the FAA because it's not a vehicle that actually went up and launched. It was just a test. And so I'm not sure what the investigations will be there. I am going to bring up Jacob, who I guess he's been following this too. He asked, he said he might have some nuggets too. So I'm going to bring him up here in the conversation. But Unless he like fell away. But I do think it's important, as I said before, like this is part of investing in space. Like you're going to have setbacks. I know there was talk about like the Neutron Rocket Lab. Neutron had one of the casings, I think, like cracked, which is good. Like you, I know someone was like trying to make a big stink out of it, but in rocket development programs, you want this type of stuff, you want these anomalies to happen now versus later when there's important cargo or if there's humans on a rocket, right? And so this is just part of the process. I think maybe perhaps like, and this is, we've all been spoiled by almost the regular cadence and taxi or a very reliable launch vehicle like Falcon 9, whereas for some of these new vehicles, there is absolute risk and You are going to have these setbacks. It's just part of the process. But yeah, I mean, I think this evening, obviously AST SpaceMobile, some people are asking like, why is AST down? Well, it's down because AST has booked a pretty decent amount of Blue Origin New Glenn launches. And so in order to get to 45 satellites by the end of the year, a decent amount of those were going to be on Blue Origin New Glenn. And so what the company has to do right now is they're going to have to pivot. So we have probably 5 Falcon 9 launches booked for this year. And my guess is there's options for more. And so the company will have to pay the money and execute those options, right? And as a result of that, it's going to cost a little more, but you're going to have certainty, right? Like you're going to have certainty that those satellites are going to be up there. Part of the, you know, one of the things that I guess I would say This does introduce like a weird dynamic in the entire industry because I think there obviously was a decent amount of cargo that was supposed to go up on New Glenn. And for NASA, this is a big setback, right? Because you had a number of programs, whether it's getting back to the moon, but also for the military, there were going to be launches that after certification of 4 New Glenn launches, there was going to be military cargo that was going to go up as well. And so All these things are going to get pushed out. And I think for, and this is another important point, I think for smaller space companies, this is not good, right? Because I think New Glenn was going to alleviate some of the capacity issues, which in all fairness, like I think one important thing to keep in mind is that Falcon 9 does have a pretty significant amount of capacity. It's a matter of like if you're willing and a willing customer who has money to pay for that capacity, which oftentimes a lot of companies, especially startups, will have to resort to like rideshares. And so those are pretty capacity constrained, but if you have money and you have cargo that's ready to go, it's not as if you're going to be turned away. And so it's a matter of, for SpaceX, do they launch their own satellites or do they take customer cargo, which I think, you know, If if there was a an abundance of customer cargo, and he'd be more than happy to fly into space. So at this point, I think the key takeaway for SD Space Mobile: this is definitely a setback for the company. So obviously, the stock is down nine percent in overnight markets. But then the key question that folks should ask themselves is you know what Scott you know Scott Wisniewski and and the Bell Avalon they certainly have Plan B. They have Plan C. There the reason why they were speaking. Or they got into a, or they hired another launch provider, which is ULA. They also, you know, I'm not sure how far the discussions have gone, but they've been talking to Ariane and also Mitsubishi Heavy. In particular for Ariane, some of the news that we found out yesterday is that as part of the European 2 GHz spectrum allocation, it looks like utilizing Arianespace is going to be one important aspect of getting an allocation, which makes sense. In order to support the European Union, you're going to need to use their launch. And so there's a reason why, for example, AST's talking to Arianespace. So I think it's important to, you know, take a step back and make sure that you understand in terms of your investment that the company is launch agnostic. And can utilize whether it's Ariane 5 Bluebird satellites, Mitsubishi Heavy 3 satellites, ISRO, which is 2 satellites. And by the way, like, I know people were making fun of ISRO back in the day, which I will say, like, you know, the rocket is reliable. They did get Bluebird 6 up to orbit and Bluebird 6 obviously was much, much heavier than the composite Bluebird. So they can do 2 at a time. And so I wouldn't be surprised that we might see some bookings with them as well. But beyond that, you know, ULA Vulcan Centaur can take, in the 6-solid rocket booster configuration, can take 5 satellites. And then of course, Blue Origin New Glenn can take up to 8. And once, you know, once it's fully back up to cadence, which obviously they've still got things to work out. And then And then of course, Falcon 9 can take 3, but if we can actually reduce some of the weight there, then you might be able to take 4. Someone's saying here, ULA Vulcan uses BE-4 engines. Yes, that's true. And so if there was an engine, if there was a problem with the engine, then that could put Vulcan, that could put them, I guess it can delay them maybe a few months depending on what the problem is. But, but at this point, we don't know, right? Like, I think there was some speculation too that perhaps there was some issues with the, the tanks or the feeding, you know, maybe the feeding lines, maybe something happened there and that caused the explosion. I mean, who knows? Like, we're all, we're all speculating at this point. But I see Jacob raised his hand. So, hey, Jacob, how's it going?
[00:18:37] Speaker C: Hey, sorry, I didn't want to Cut off your flow state there. Yeah, I just wanted to just like reemphasize that like it's I mean you've said it a bunch. I'll say it again. Like everything tonight's speculation. Like I I have a I know somebody who knows somebody works at Blue Origin and I got their text message saying that like it happened right at ignition. So you know that that like it's not like an overpressurized tank that explodes something like that. So probably something to do with the ignition process. But that I mean that doesn't really tell us much now. The only other thing I'd say is like the right tower fell. That's a lot of steel. So the— I know if the— if like the deluge system, like the, the, the like flame trench of the pad, if that had got— if that got real damaged, that's a— that's pretty long recovery time for those. Those are very complex. You wouldn't think so. Just water. But all the channeling and stuff to do with those is complex. So that's a possibility. But again, everything's speculation until we know more.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: But, like, yeah. But for AST specifically, like, you're talking about, like, there's, there's other launchers. And, and you know what? I feel like if it came down to it, like, having this, your payload ready, and then, you know, what if there's a market for buying the launch out from someone else? Like, there's these rideshare missions. What would they have to pay to a company like Exolaunch to buy out the launch or something like that? You know? I don't know. Just, just another idea for another F9.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: So, I, I mean, yeah. I, they, it's not, I'm not gonna say this has zero impact, but it's not like the end of the world. So it doesn't affect— Bluebirds still work. It may take a little longer to get them up, but it's not the end of the world.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's obviously a setback and the timeline is going to shift. But then there's also, if you have money and you can throw it at the problem, which is buying more Falcon 9 launches, that's one way to solve it. But I think from a competitive standpoint, I was kind of alluding to this to this before, there's going to be bottlenecks, right? And so this is where the launch capacity question comes into play, where I think AST has reservations for launch, but then one key question will be, can they scramble to get more, which I think they will be able to. I mean, it's a matter of, do you pay full freight or do you pay, or you try to haggle for some discount on a Falcon 9? And if you're doing dedicated launches, that's much easier. But if you are a smaller company that needs to do rideshare, that's where it gets really tricky because it's almost like solving for a Rubik's Cube, right? Where you need to have the right number of people to be on a rideshare where it's economic. And then, you know, then it reaches critical mass where they can go launch those things, right? Whereas if you're buying a dedicated launch, then there's a lot more flexibility. Depending on, um, you know, what you're willing to pay.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: Yeah, and that's what I was going to say about— so Exolaunch is a company that actually buys the F9, and then they do— I don't know if it's the transporter or the bandwagon, but they actually, they do all of the booking and everything else. So they're just buying the Falcon from, um, from SpaceX. So if they have the slot already, I mean, you gotta think— yeah, you think it would be economical, get close to economical, that you're like, oh, pay full price for that, or we'll pay whatever Over full, you know, we'll pay more than you paid for it and just give it to us. You don't have to wrangle all these smaller competitors to grab, you know, try to fill one launch. That's just, just an idea that came to my head while we were talking. Like, you could almost buy the launch, you could buy out the capacity from these secondary, um, uh, bandwagon people.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Yeah, but, but I think, I think in that, in that regard, um, unless you're saying like you would buy out their entire launch, uh, I guess that's possible.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: But Just an idea. I mean, I don't know.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think, you know, the company has plan B and C. Like the— I think folks were surprised at how quickly New Glenn was successful. Successful meaning the first successful launch, which was the second one. So I know that's confusing. And then of course the third one was successful, but then didn't place herself into the proper orbit. But, um, there, there were contingency plans for this, right? Which is why the company has been talking with other launch providers and of course signed on with ULA. And as someone pointed out, BE-4, um, you know, that, that, and if the, if the engine's a problem, then perhaps ULA might be grounded for a while as well. But, um, but yeah, I mean, this, this is a setback for the industry. It's, it's going to, it's tough for, um, Amazon LEO because obviously they were going to use Blue Origin as well to get their constellation up. Although they have, you know, flight just like everybody else. They have flights booked on Falcon 9 and ULA Vulcan Centaur and Ariane as well. And so, yeah, I mean, I think for folks who, this is a bummer. Like I was driving back from my son's soccer practice and I was just, oh, just go on Twitter and I saw this massive explosion and I was like, okay, that's not good. And yeah, it's going to be a setback depending on tomorrow. The stock will be down. I'm sure there'll be a lot of ink written about it and we'll probably have a better understanding of what's going on tomorrow or the day after. But yeah, this is just part of space and I think people should remain calm. You know, the stock goes down to $120, Well, we just came from $63. And so I think having some perspective, like even if the stock goes down to $110 or $115, you know, I did have a space earlier today where I did talk about, you know, making sure that you stay honest with your targets. And if you were planning to set aside some capital, you know, once the stock had rebounded from $63 or you had bought some upside, you know, you got to be honest with yourself and like monetize some of that, which I did. over the last 2 days and I think others up here as well. And so this is kind of what you're prepped for, right? Like there is going to be volatility and setbacks. And so sometimes there are opportunities to buy back in or do whatever you need to, right? So, but yeah, I think, yeah, go ahead.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Sorry, quick question. And I mean, obviously you don't crystal ball, but like, I don't know. So In general, like if a stock has some big event or something like that and you get like a, like a, you know, hard down or something like that in the open, is there always a bounce or is it sometimes a bounce or is it like just depends on the, I don't know, I guess I'm wondering in my mind if there's like a tradable play tomorrow. Maybe it's probably not a thing to focus on, but that's what I was asking.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: No, it's important. That's what we're here for, right? So there is a decent amount of short interest. I think today the short interest actually went up from the day before. So it was at $66 million today. Versus 63.6 the prior day. But yeah, there's going to be, and this is, so when you have situations like this, this is where short sellers can be your friend. When a stock goes down, oftentimes short sellers will be looking to monetize their position or cover. And so you might get some buying support. But I think tomorrow, you know, pre-market, the stock's going to be down. I mean, overnight right now it's at like $120. I think it went as low. Let me just look.
[00:25:52] Speaker C: I think it was $118.43.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: $118.43. And I'll be honest, like I had a, I have a small Robinhood account and I had some, I normally have just regular AST stock in it. The reason why I have this Robinhood account, by the way, is that I opened it so I could see what Robinhood was about. 'Cause like a lot of younger people use it and then there's some like interesting stuff with it. Like we can trade overnight for some stocks, which you can't do on E-Trade. And so I opened this account and then I think I opened it with like $20,000 and then I was like, I just owned AST stock and some other stuff in it. And then when we went to the dip, when we had that dip down to 63, I actually sold everything and bought ASTX in it. And this thing rebounded to like $70,000 and then, but I still had it. And then when this news came out, I was like, oh shit. And so I immediately went in and I sold out of that position, I think at like 71. which, let me just see where ASTX is now. I think ASTX is trading at $62.80 or so. So in that account, like tomorrow I'm planning to probably buy some back depending on where it trades. But, you know, it's, I guess I would say like there's going to be a knee-jerk open. My guess is there would be a knee-jerk open and maybe it goes down to like $115, maybe low, maybe $110, and that's probably a buy. For a bounce back. Because I think one thing that people will, there'll be this knee-jerk reaction and then people who are negative are going to try to say like, oh, the company's never going to get this constellation up. I mean, you saw, I was like, okay, so you saw Tim Ferriss this evening say, well, the company only has 4 F9s and so they're never, let me just take a look here. I don't want this quote.
[00:27:36] Speaker C: He was talking. Yeah, no, you can get the quote, but he was He was referring to the New Glenn, like, 4 by 9, their larger heavy— the super heavy lift vehicle that they're working on. He's saying, like, oh, they're just going to go straight to that version and not even do any more of the 4 by 7s or whatever they are now, or 2 by 7s. Yeah. He's dumb if that's such a dumb statement. They have a full use— the other first booster is still perfectly fine.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Well, he— so he got that from Eric Berger. And by the way, like, I did talk to Eric. Or sorry, I didn't talk to Eric. Um, I remember running some of Eric Berger's speculation by AST management. I think it was like last summer. And they were like, that guy is completely wrong. Like they, 'cause they, they know Blue Origin, um, management well, and they're pretty much embedded at Blue Origin. And so, um, when I ran into stuff, I was like, is this Eric Berger guy? Is he right in what he's saying? And it was like, no, he's completely wrong.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: So, um, like I have two. Yeah. So one example, he said something about Lockheed Martin, something, and Peter Beck straight up Like, nope was his only answer, like, to quote him wrong. And then he had a whole article about the engines that had failed during testing, which they weren't supposed to. And basically a bunch of FUD made out of nothing there too, which, you know, basically Peter said, like, Eric, you're making a molehill out of something, or nothing is a molehill.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Okay. So this is what Tim Farrar said. And so the reason why I'm reading this is because it's important context. He said, so with 4 F9s planned this year and no more New Glens until the pad is rebuilt, it looks like AC Commercial Service will now be pushed to 2028. And then, um, the good news is AST can blame a lack of launchers and everyone will be able to ignore the delays in manufacturing. Better news, clueless cult can continue to pretend it's broadband because no one will be able to use the service for real. Um, so the reason why I bring this up is that this is the Tim Perard who originally said that, um, that the Bluebirds would not fit into a Falcon 9 fairing. And then he, and then of course like now he's saying that, oh, there's, they're going to launch on 4 Falcon 9s, which is quite funny. Like I have no idea where he's getting this information, but yeah, there's going to be news and people are going to be negative. And so I think the stock will, at the open pre-market, it'll do what it is and then it'll gap down. But then, you know, depending on how much volume trades there, my guess is like it'll rebound to a degree. It's not going to get back to obviously dirty. But it depends. Like tomorrow, I don't expect AST to say anything because they won't know anything until Blue Origin has concluded an investigation. But yeah, I think the market will have to digest that service is going to get pushed out to a degree, which I pointed this out earlier, which was, I guess it was bad timing because we were all like celebrating, oh, Blue Origin New Glenn's going to get back to launch next week, which would've been a positive thing, right? Like if they have a successful launch. But that's been an overhang on the stock. And so the question is like, how much of that, how much overhang was priced in that there was risk that the New Glenn was going to get delayed? And so I'd argue that, you know, when the stock traded all the way down to $63, like that was heavily priced in. And then how much were priced in that New Glenn was going to return to launch, right? And actually get several launches off this year, I would say that maybe that was 60/40, that people, 60%, maybe even more optimistic, 65%, that New Glenn was going to get back in the rotation, which by the way, like at the earliest, New Glenn was not going to launch an AST Bluebird until probably August at earliest, maybe September. But in between, like, and this is where People have the memory will be short, right? Where it's like, oh shit, New Glenn is off the table right now. But then within, what is it? Probably the next 2, 3 weeks, we're going to have a Falcon 9 launch, right? Batch 1. And before that, my guess is that you'll see another batch, batch 2, shift down to the Cape sometime in, I don't know, in the next 2 to 3 weeks. And so the key thing for me, like I was talking with Cook about this a little earlier, we just had a brief chat. I think the key thing is production cadence, right? Because you got to build these satellites and if you can build them fast enough, if you have money, you can launch them. And meaning you can buy Falcon 9 launches and get them up. And after your first 5 are done, it might take a little longer to And I'm assuming management's on the phone and they're booking more right now. But I think the key thing is like getting those additional launches lined up will be important. And then in the meantime, like you're going to wait and see what Blue Origin is doing in terms of the investigation rebuilding. My guess is like, I mean, we saw a message from Jeff Bezos this evening where they're going, Right back to it, right? They're going to rebuild whatever they need. The guy's got, and this is like part of the reason why you would bet with Blue Origin is that it's Jeff Bezos, right? He's got a ton of money. He's going to figure it out. And and so they're going to get back to rebuilding actually the new launch pad, and they're going to rebuild the the one that got blown up today, and they'll be back at it, right? And so the key question is like how many Falcon Nine launches and ULA. Centaurs can you book in the meantime? Which is a good thing that the company did bring on another launch provider, right? And so I think it's going to take time for the market to digest that. And there might be, and this is something to keep an eye out for, right? Like there's going to be research reports that come out as well. Like that initial reaction, it depends on like what sell-side analysts think too. Like if the company talks to them and gets uncomfortable with Plan B, then there may not be much activity there, or you might have like some downgrades, You might have stock price targets adjusted because things are getting pushed out to a degree. But this setback is a setback for the industry, right? Like it's going to be tough for Amazon Leo, which is, we're not competing with them, but for Amazon Global Star overall, this is not a good thing for ViaSat. You know, I was joking about ViaSat, like my short position in ViaSat and my like comments about it. I kind of like did that in a half-joking way and I did short it in small size because it was really a forcing mechanism for me to research it because I wanted to understand like, is this a reasonable investment? Like obviously the stock has rerated and part of that has been from the rising spectrum valuations, but also the Legato payment helped bail them out to a degree. But But I listened to that call today and this Equisys JV, I guess we'll find out like new details about it, but it truly does sound like a lot of different moving parts. It's not clear what exactly is going on. Maybe they were being a bit coy about it because they're trying to, you know, they're trying to not give too many details right now. But that one of the key questions on that call was one of the research analysts asked, well, you know, hey, don't you guys need to have these agreements in place? Then don't you need to secure launches? And then Mark Gengenberger was like, yeah, we will have the agreements in place and then we're going to go out and go buy launches, which, yeah, that's going to be a bit tougher now, probably.
[00:35:10] Speaker C: So that little spot right there, he almost started to say something else and he changed his sentence and he almost said we have, and then he started to change his sentence. And all the reason I'm speculating is only because there's this confidential customer for Neutron that we don't know who it is. They booked 5 launches. that revealed last quarter. So if Rocket Lab ends up being part of this Equitas, whatever it's called, thing, that they may end up being a launch provider for it. But I don't know that at all. It's just something that we're all speculating because they're talking about bringing another person, another, like, the bus provider, basically launcher in. So I don't know. MDA is the other one that I'm looking at as being the bus provider.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that would make sense.
[00:35:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: And I think, you know, this is like part of the excitement, but also the anxiety, right? Investing in space, because I'm excited for Rocket Lab Neutron for its maiden flight and for that to get to commercial cadence. But it's also the flip side of that is like, holy shit, it's a new vehicle and there can be There can be mishaps too. And so it's exciting, but I think that's also part of the thing you have to prep yourself as a space investor, that these things do happen.
[00:36:31] Speaker C: Expect them to happen.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Having a perfect mission your first time out is not something that's normal. And it's just part of being in a cutting-edge new vehicle design program, uh, you're gonna have these things.
[00:36:46] Speaker C: But yeah. Yeah, the only other thing, and you kind of touched on it earlier, the only other, like, um, I guess for the macro piece to this, for the macro space sector anyways, is that, um, and this could actually end up being like a forcing function for them to get it, to get it back like up and running faster, is that NASA is really depending on, on New Glenn and the MK1 vehicle and everything else for all the, for all the Artemis program and all the moon landing stuff. So if they can quickly work to rebuild it, I bet you can get permitting and all that other stuff way cut down. That kind of red tape might get pushed away quicker because it's like, oh, this is now a national priority. So I don't know, that's maybe the only— maybe another silver lining.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Yeah, no, you actually bring up a really good point, and someone had made this earlier. This administration is built differently. Right? Like the FAA investigation for the second stage mishap, that took what, 30 days? And then they were back to static fire here and then they were going to launch next week. But it is, you bring up a very important point, which is that we are in an absolute space race with China and for better or for worse, NASA has put its eggs in In 1 to 2 baskets, which is Blue Origin New Glenn and SpaceX Starship, right? And for all intents and purposes, like, that's it. And so I think the administration is going to be pretty aggressive in the timeline here because they want to get this rocket back up and going as well as Starship because there are no alternatives, right? Because I don't think, you know better than me, but it seems like Artemis is not going to be relied upon for any critical stuff for the future missions, right?
[00:38:35] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Sorry, Captain was in the chat. He was saying that the power might have been, I don't, maybe I shouldn't say that until it's, he said the power might be out on the other pads or something like that. So it might affect the Atlas launch that was supposed to launch tomorrow. But, um, not— I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that. Let me look it up. Uh, but sorry, I, I hate speculating live like that because I don't want to— I don't want to say the wrong thing. Um, but, uh, the— oh, lost it. Never mind. It's probably— I don't know how you're awake. So, I mean, it's— I feel it's like it's late. It's only 9 here, but geez.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I'm tired. I'm tired. Um, I was planning to go to bed early and then I saw this, I was like, oh shit. But yeah, I mean, tomorrow it's going to be ugly. Stocks are going to be down. I mean, it's not, I mean, it's, I don't know how ugly. I don't think it's going to be awful, but yeah, it's a hiccup. And I think the other thing too, there was like some Bloomberg article talking about how, or people were speculating how the SpaceX valuation supposedly was lowered. But in reality, I think you guys were talking about before. In reality, I think it's in line, right? It's like 1.8.
[00:39:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, because Bloomberg had speculated it was $2 trillion. Uh, Space Investor found this, um, and Elon directly denied it. So, um, uh, the one— it was only official number before was like $1.5 to $1.75, and now, now they're saying it's $1.8. So it actually went up, so that's a good thing. I was— but yeah, that was the other thing I was going to say, was that like, you know, we may see like maybe some lag or something, or this might affect kind of that sector next week, but I can't imagine this isn't going to like, then I feel like it's the perfect rest period before it pumps with the SpaceX IPO. I don't know. That's just general sector-wide. I'm puffing on hopium over here. All right.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, so for people that don't know, when you, when bankers take a company public, you typically have a filing range and your filing range, you know, for, I'm just making up some numbers, but for SpaceX, it could be, let's call it $1.5 to $1.7 trillion, which is kind of nuts for me even saying, you know, that trillion number. But what banks like to do is they'll set a filing range, they'll go out on a roadshow, and this is how you build like excitement or interest. Obviously there's like feedback from capital markets, from investors of like, oh, okay, is this valuation reasonable? Is it too high, too low? And then prior to when their prospectus goes effective, they'll try to raise the range again. They'll raise it to like $1.7 to $1.9 based off of demand. And that gets people really excited. And they try, you know, if you put in your allocation for, I want $100 million worth of SpaceX, you know, they might come back and say, oh, it's really hot. And so you may not get much of your allocation. So instead of putting in for $100, if you think that's a real number, you need to put in an allocation for, because this thing's going to get oversubscribed. You put an allocation for $400 million and you'll get reduced back to 1. And so they'll create like this demand, this like cycling demand. And then of course, like when it comes time to actually price IPO, you know, the range was 1.5 to 1.7. They raised it 1.7 to 1.9, then they'll price it like 2.2 trillion, right? And then when they allocate the shares to people, you asked for $400 million, you got filled on 75, And then institutions like Fidelity and others, they're like, well, I didn't get my full allocation, so I need to go out in the aftermarket once the company's public and go buy more shares to get to where I want to be. And so that's how like people create demand in these IPOs. And so these ranges are kind of like they're trying to ramp up interest and show that there's a lot of demand there. And so it'll be interesting to see where it ultimately prices. My guess is If it's at $1.8 trillion now, you know, at the end of the roadshow, they'll probably say, you know, they'll raise the range to $1.9 to $2 trillion, and then they'll price it at $2.1 trillion, something like that. But we'll see. I mean, but I think that speculation from the article, obviously, you know, some people are like, oh, that's not good. Like if the valuation is down, which it's not, but if it was down, and then of course you had this meme plan, anomaly, like perhaps the space sector's going to be red tomorrow, which it will be. It will be red tomorrow because AST is a big proxy of the space sector. And so inevitably everything else is going to trade down to some extent. And let's see, where's Rocket Lab trading now? I guess it's down just 2.4%. And just look here, Intuitive Machines is down 3.5% and What's another company you can look at here?
[00:43:27] Speaker C: Redwire is down too. Um, all, all the, uh, all the, the stuff that was lunar kind of, um, adjacent seems like it was getting hit. I— Redwire, maybe just because it ran so hot, but I don't know.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah, the, the other thing I would say is that, um, the space sector has been absolutely on fire over the last few weeks, and so some of these smaller companies that are serial issuers of stock, whether that's Satellogic or Sidus, S-I-D-U, or Momentus, M-N-T-S, they all priced deals. And then Firefly just announced, or they just priced their deal. I think they're raising some primary capital, meaning the company's raising money, but then also AEE Industrial Partners, which is a private equity firm focused on space, they're selling a pretty decent chunk of their stock. which they also sold out of completely Redwire as well. So yeah, anyway, but we'll see tomorrow. It's midnight, so I'm going to try to go to bed because I'm sure I'm going to wake up early. But I think it's important, like, make sure you don't get caught up in the speculation. Tim Ferriss is having a field day. This is the type of shit he loves, which he's a pretty miserable prick. But anyway, But yeah, we'll find out. And just keep in mind, we've got like a handful of Falcon 9 launches this year and that's going to happen, right? And the key thing for me is production cadence. And so how long does it take in between batches of satellites? And does that timeframe continue to shorten? Because then that's, for me, is the key. Because I think ultimately for the company with amount of money that they have, they can buy launches, they can buy, and it's a matter of, are you going to get a discount or you have to pay full price, right? And so yeah, this is a setback, but when you zoom out over the next 3, 4, or 5 years, it will be a small blip. But anyway, I don't know. Did you have anything else to say, Jacob?
[00:45:29] Speaker C: No, no, just, I feel for you, man. I mean, I feel for us, man.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: It sucks.
[00:45:34] Speaker C: So like, you know, I guess if the community is listening, it's, it, you know, it should happen. Space is hard. We'll, uh, we won't even remember it in a year from now, hopefully. All right, man, have a good night.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: Those are not empty words. Space is hard. And on days like this, it is a reminder that, um, those, those words are true. But anyway, um, I'll end it there. Or, you know what, I'll take a quick look. I see a ton of comments, so let me just See here.
[00:46:04] Speaker C: Um, there's lots of support, a lot of supportive comments.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: Is it— question, how long would it take to rebuild a transport porter erector? Grok estimates 1 to 1.5 years. I'm not sure. Um, they might have one already in process, right? Because they were building another pad. But that's a good question. I'm not sure. Um, The other thing is like once you build one of these things the first time, it should be faster to build a second one.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:33] Speaker C: The only, the, the real long pole on those things is the flame trench. Like I was saying earlier, those are the, those are really complex pieces and a lot of steel. But, uh, I mean, yeah, hopefully, I mean, I'm sure they're gonna be pushing it and they'll probably do a risk, you know, pro-con on which, which is better to rebuild the one they have or to finish building the new one. So he'll make the right decision.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Let's see. Do you think there's any chance of capital raise to fund the acquisition of launches from other sources in a timely manner? I don't think so. I mean, there could be, I guess there always can be a potential for capital raise, but the company has, I mean, they've burned through some of the capital, but they have what, almost $4 billion in pro forma cash. So I don't think that's really a problem at this point. Thankfully. So this is a reminder of like when the company does raise cash and something does happen, you always, you don't feel good sometimes when they raise cash, but in retrospect, you know, the last time they raised money, it's like, oh, they raised a billion dollars and everything's fine. So it's important, like when you're doing difficult things to have a fortress balance sheet. Let's see, the Booster 3 exploded. Blue Origin can still use Booster 1 and 2, right? Um, no, so Booster 1 is gone. That was the first one that we lost, um, or they lost. Booster 2, yes, they can continue to use that. And then Booster—
[00:47:53] Speaker C: I was gonna say Booster 2 is, is it— I would just say maybe right now. We need to see how, how it— that, that, um, that, uh, integration facility that's right there in front of launch pad is where the booster was at, and that was really— it's pretty close to the section. So as long as it's not damaged yet, it's perfectly fine.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah, there, there is some speculation that perhaps they lost more. They lost like some second stages and a booster, but who knows? We'll see. But we do know that booster, let's see, booster 4, sorry, booster, is it booster 4? Yeah, booster 4 is in production and booster 5. They're expecting to get 3 more boosters done, I think this year. So yeah, we'll see.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: Yeah. So when they, that the plus side is the thing that maybe people aren't realizing too is that they have all of those, boosters and first stages built, when the pad is done, it's not going to be 3 months between a launch. They can pile them up back to back, like one after another, right? So like the campaign could go up, could increase faster if they have built a backlog of these first stages and the boosters. This is all I was trying to get at. So there's another silver lining. The launches could happen really fast once they're back up and launching.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Yeah, this second stage is— I think they have Or they had built up to what, 14? They're working on their 15th right now. But of course they used, I guess they used 3 and then actually one just got blown up. So they've used 4. So up to 14. So that means that they have approximately 10, 10 that they can use unless some of them got blown up in the facility nearby. But yeah, for the first stage booster, they have, if never determine the odds was not close by, but they had that one. And then they got 2 in production and they were eventually trying to get to a total of, I think, 5 in rotation this year. But we'll see. Someone's saying, me and my T-shares are in shambles. Yes, I feel your pain. Will this—
[00:49:52] Speaker C: The scary thing about options is you don't see the damage really until the next day. So I'm like, oh, it doesn't look so bad. And then when it opens, and stuff. Sorry, continue.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, I, fortunately I sold like a decent chunk, but I still have a lot. But the rest that I have, a lot of 'em are call spreads. And so I had these like 90/120 and 100/120 call spreads. And so they'll, it's not going to be good, but they'll be okay. Let's see, ISRO. Is ISRO possible? Yes, ISRO is possible, but it is kind of a pain in the ass to get satellites there, but it is certainly possible and you can put 2 on there, uh, an LVM-3. Let's see. Will the explosion also impact SpaceX launches due to damage? Um, I don't believe so. SpaceX, um, for, so for those people who were there at the launch, um, they, they will notice or will have noticed that, um, while we were there for launch, you, you, when you look straight out onto, um, launch pads, you, you'll see, you can see the 2 SpaceX launch pads, or at least one of them where Falcon 9 launches from. You cannot actually directly see the SLC-3, which is where Blue Origin New Glenn launches. It's actually, you have to look to your right and then it's past this structure. So you don't even get to see the rocket directly. Like when we watched Blue Origin New Glenn launch, it wasn't until the rocket had cleared like the structure on the right side of the bleachers that you could see it. And so Yeah, the, the, this is why all these launchpads are built very far apart from each other because you don't want any mishap to impact another company's launch. Let's see. Is there a chance a short seller blew up the rocket? I don't believe so. That would be bad. But if they were looking to short AST and blowing up Blue Origin's rocket, that seems like a pretty silly thing. If Blue Origin was public, and they did it, then perhaps you could make a case for that. But I don't know. I don't think any, if everyone remembers, I think it was like GoldenEye or James Bond, like where they shorted like some airline company and then they tried to destroy the plane to make money. Or maybe it was that Die Hard. I forget which one, which movie. But I guess it's possible, but I doubt it. I think this was something that happened For the company? Let's see. ASTS is cooked. Okay. Yeah, the stock is down. So I don't think the company is cooked, but, but yeah. Is it going to set back, um, the rollout of satellites? Uh, yeah, it's going to set back, uh, maybe by a few months, but the key thing is the Falcon 9 launches and getting more Falcon 9s booked. I think that was it. So, yeah. Yeah.
[00:52:41] Speaker C: I was going to say the— again, I wanted to point out that the— well, I don't know. I guess there's a silver lining again is that I think that once— if they are— because New Glenn's issue was that they didn't have all these things built yet to launch them, right? And then AST was ready. It was at a point where it was building faster than New Glenns are coming out. I think we're going to have New Glenns on the ground and AST Bluebirds on the ground, both ready to go. And then when the pad opens, it's just going to be go, go, go. And then by the finish date of let's say at the 90 constellation mark, maybe it's not that far off than what it would have been prior to this pad explosion. I don't know. That's my positive spin on it.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: Well, cool. We can use the hopium. But yeah, we'll see what happens tomorrow. You know, it's— there will be— maybe we'll get an update from Blue Origin by tomorrow and have a better sense of where things are. Again, I would take everything with a big grain of salt. People are speculating. This guy, Eric Berger, as I said before, like he writes on authority and he says like he has these sources, but he has been wrong so many times in the past. So just take what he says. Yeah, with a hefty dose of skepticism. But anyway, I'll end it there. It's pretty late and you go to bed and we'll see what happens tomorrow. Maybe I'll do a space tomorrow depending on what else we learn. But yeah, unfortunate event, but this is space. You pick yourself up, improve, and carry on. Take care, everyone.
[00:54:14] Speaker C: Good night.
[00:54:14] 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.
[00:54:41] 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 even to know that it's connected by satellite. Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership with the NMO. Listen.
[00:55:22] Speaker A: Mmm, waffles.