AST SpaceMobile Q1 2026 Earnings Call

[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. 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 B: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to AST SpaceMobile's first quarter 2026 business update. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Max Colbert, Investor Relations Manager of AST SpaceMobile. Thank you, you may begin.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Thank you and good afternoon everyone. Today I'm also joined by Chairman and CEO Abel Avalon, President Scott Wisniewski, and CFO and Chief Legal Officer Andy Johnson. Let me refer you to slide 2 of the presentation, which contains our safe harbor disclaimer. During today's call, we may make certain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, and as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements on this call. For more information about these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the risk factors section of AST SpaceMobile's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other documents filed by AST SpaceMobile with the SEC from time to time. Also, after our initial remarks, we will be starting our Q&A section with questions submitted in advance by our shareholders. For those of you who may be new to our company and mission, there are nearly 6 billion mobile phones today around the world, but many of us still experience gaps in coverage as we live, work, and travel. Additionally, there are billions of people without cellular broadband and who remain unconnected to the global economy. The markets we are pursuing at AST SpaceMobile are massive, and the problem we are solving is important and touches nearly all of us. In this backdrop, AST SpaceMobile is building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with everyday unmodified mobile devices, supported by our extensive IP and patent portfolio. It is now my pleasure to pass this over to Chairman and CEO Abel Avalon, who will go through our activities since our last public update.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Thank you, Max. ST SpaceMobile's start to 2026 reflects our progress in scaling manufacturing and production, mobile network operator partner expansion, ground network integration, multi-partner launch, and a fortress capital position. These advancements across nearly all initiatives help solidify why ST SpaceMobile is the only company whose technology is positioned to capture the direct-to-device cellular broadband opportunity in full. We continue to execute on key business objectives as the company transitions from R&D stage to fully scaled operational deployment. On the manufacturing front, we have over half a million square feet of manufacturing and operations Space globally, as we continue to scale our manufacturing effort, we're in advanced stages of producing and assembly through Bluebird 33, with phase arrays completed through Bluebird 28. A detailed cadence of our '25 and '26 deployment plan is shown in the accompanying quarterly presentation found on our IR website. Our 95% vertically integrated manufacturing strategy a significant long-term advantage with our manufacturing team ramping up significantly over the past several quarters. I am thrilled to report that the leadership we have in place is now producing microns, phase arrays, stackable satellite composite structure at an accelerating pace to support our target cadence of 6 fully assembled satellites per month. Our custom ASIC is designed to support up to 10 GHz of processing bandwidth per satellite and is expected to nearly double the peak data speed recently achieved using our on-orbit Block 1 Bluebird satellites, helping unlock true space-based cellular functionality and enabling native cellular capabilities that consumers now expect everywhere all the time. As a reminder, we're building the largest phased array in low Earth orbit. We possess the ability to deploy significant power to orbit at a meaningful scale and competitive cost. This gives us an ample opportunity to scale our space-based cellular broadband constellation based on demand signals from our growing list of partners. That is a unique, important concept for the direct-to-device industry. With even broader implications as space becomes an energy-rich and data-native industrial environment. We continue to leverage these advantages by driving innovation into every aspect of our satellite capabilities. We are deploying specific AI edge computing and AI spectrum management features for on-orbit capabilities to incorporate into novel AI platforms and maximize user experience. We currently expect to integrate these features into our next-generation BlueBird satellite, targeting BlueBirds in production by year-end. Our multiple provider orbital launch strategy features orbital launch aboard Blue Origin, SpaceX, and others. As a reflection of our multi-partner launch strategy, we are returning to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in mid-June with Bluebirds 8, 9, and 10 aboard a Falcon 9 launch vehicle. We are excited to get back to the launch pad very soon and are targeting approximately 45 satellites in orbit by year-end through a combination of our launch providers. Our ground-based gateway architecture acts as a native extension of our network operator partners, interfacing directly with Nokia Innobis and MNO cores. over standard 3GPP protocols. This means our gateways architecture and/or satellites network scales natively with 4G, 5G, and future 6G standards, reducing network integration complexity. We're actively scaling our ground network integration efforts around the world, including in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, India, Brazil, Spain, Germany, France, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal, targeting a combined population of 2.9 billion people. It is an incredible feat to scale our business outside of the United States, an effort which requires significant scale and commitment from our company, our partners, and global regulators. We continue to make progress on partner and ecosystem network integration as we move closer to service activation in key partner markets. We're actively deploying hundreds of fixed cells per week. As part of this effort, we achieved satellite-to-satellite cellular broadband connectivity handoff without disrupting the connectivity experience on the smartphones. Additionally, we recently achieved peak data speed of an incredible 98.9 megabits per second using our in-orbit Block 1 satellites. This latest record was conducted over international waters directly to unmodified off-the-shelf smartphones. This achievement is significant for several reasons. It further validates that our satellite technology is the only one specifically designed for space-based direct-to-device cellular broadband, achieving these speeds that our partners expect for the customer no matter where they are located everywhere in the planet. And we're just getting started. We expect our on-orbit Block 2 Bluebird satellite to nearly double the peak data speed recently achieved using our on-orbit Block I Bluebird satellite when enabled with enough spectrum on a region-by-region basis. ST SpaceMobile is mobile network operator partner of choice for space-based cellular broadband because our bent pipe system integration solution works natively with existing terrestrial infrastructure and is designed to support space-based cellular broadband connectivity. Our ecosystem includes nearly 60 global MNO partners covering over 3 billion subscribers, including key partners like AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, STC, Bell Canada, and TELUS. Our commercial advancements have enabled us to secure over $1.2 billion in contracted revenue commitments from our commercial partners. And we plan to accelerate this as we further deploy our network. On the regulatory front, we were granted FCC authorization to operate our BlueBird satellite constellation commercially in the United States, enabling direct-to-device connectivity in the U.S. on premium low-band spectrum in coordination with our partners Verizon, AT&T, and FirstNet. The grant also reflects the FCC recognition of our ability to deliver direct-to-device cellular mobile connectivity from space and operate alongside terrestrial communication networks, further validating our unique technology and network design. We thank the current administration, the FCC, and Commissioner Carr for his leadership in bringing new technologies online to advance United States leadership in space. Our Our comprehensive spectrum strategy leverages our satellite technology, which is capable of tuning within approximately 1,100 MHz of low-band and mid-band tunable MNO spectrum globally, including 45 MHz of MSS lower mid-band spectrum and 60 MHz of licensed S-band spectrum priority rights outside of North America. In particular, the 45 MHz of L-band spectrum is currently unused. Providing us with an ample opportunity to drive business against the use of that spectrum. Additionally, the lower mid-band L-band spectrum features higher quality propagation characteristics when compared to other MSS frequencies. This means more opportunities to grow subscriber capacity and bring additional service to targeted markets around the world alongside our MNO partners. We expect the combination of our satellite technology featuring the largest phased array in low Earth orbit and access to MNO shared spectrum, MSS spectrum, and AI spectrum management features will enable us to effectively multiply spectrum efficiencies and develop a completely new layer of connectivity on a global scale. The combination of building a native space-based cellular broadband network with our partner-first integration design is second to none. We are supported by our extensive IP and patent portfolio of approximately 3,900 patents and patent-pending claims as we successfully advance from early-stage R&D to scaled deployment of satellites and ground-based gateways. In closing, Our company has key assets including IP, manufacturing, partnerships, spectrum, and balance sheet cash with approximately $3.5 billion to build and launch over 100 BlueBird satellites to enable global coverage of space mobile service. Our team is focused, disciplined, and executing against our deployment plan. We're encouraged by the progress we are making and the momentum we see across our commercial, regulatory, and governing— and government initiatives. And with that, I will turn the call back to Scott.
[00:12:40] Speaker D: Thank you, Abel.
[00:12:44] Speaker E: Since our last business update 10 weeks ago, we have continued to execute against the broader commercialization priorities we laid out at the start of the year. Our key task leading the business is to leverage our revolutionary technology deployment and best-in-class partnerships to achieve our 2026 and 2027 revenue objectives as we build out the revenue platform for the company to maximize long-term shareholder value. The market pull for our network, the one we're deploying today, a global resilient space-based cellular broadband network with dual-use capabilities, it remains extremely strong. Against this backdrop, we have recently signed additional mobile network operator contracts and received additional U.S. government awards. First, we announced an agreement with TELUS as our second partner in Canada, who also made an equity investment in ASTS. TELUS and Bell will be our commercial partners in Canada. And in Africa, we are pleased to be partnering with Axian Telecom, a pan-African operator in 11 different countries, joining our existing agreements with Vodacom, Orange, and MTN. Our dialogue globally with mobile network operators has increased in both volume and depth, and we've been building out the broad organizational capabilities to support the rollout of commercial services in these markets. Looking ahead, we expect additional MNO agreements to be signed with increasing velocity throughout 2026. On the U.S. government side, we continue to grow the pipeline with 3 additional awards through prime contractors. These awards address 3 unique use cases across secure communications and non-communications capabilities, reflecting strong proof points ahead of larger contracts. Alongside further developing these important national security capabilities, including those related to the Golden Dome, these awards are expected to contribute significantly to 2026 revenue objectives. As a reminder, our goal across all our contracts is to develop capabilities that could grow into programs of record with billions of annual revenue potential in aggregate over the medium and long term for missions important to U.S. national security. As a commitment to these efforts, we've made significant progress expanding our organizational capabilities through AST SpaceMobile's wholly owned government and defense subsidiary. This alignment enables us to better allocate resources and expand our organizational capabilities to best serve the U.S. government customer. Transitioning to revenue, we achieved nearly $15 million in reported revenue during Q1, again driven by milestone achievements under our U.S. government contracts and commercial gateway deliveries to MNOs. On the commercial side, we saw execution with 4 different customers that contributed to revenue in the quarter. With the hardware to deliver initial commercial services now in their respective regions across 5 continents, the ground readiness initiatives that Abel referenced are firmly underway. This is an important step to have started during 2025 because it gives the teams on the ground time to prepare, deploy real hardware solutions for backhaul, and integrate with customer network cores. This is a very significant operational effort that is an important leading indicator ahead of commercial service activation. 2026 revenue will benefit from this commercial deployment effort as we deliver against existing contractual orders and sign new contract wins, both of which show a deep pipeline. Turning to revenue from our U.S. government business, we executed across 5 existing contracts during the quarter, further demonstrating the in-orbit capabilities of our BlueBird satellites. To give you some additional color, we advanced milestones under our prime contract with the Space Development Agency as part of the Europa Track 2 Commercial Solutions Program under HALO. This work is focused on delivering operationally relevant tactical communications capabilities directly to government end devices. We also advanced our communications efforts with milestones against contracts where Fairwinds is the prime contractor, some of which is a follow-on related to our previously demonstrated NTN tactical SATCOM capabilities. That field test showcased real-time connectivity to a tactical assault kit over a VPN with multimedia streaming via the tactical assault kit and secure multi-party video calls, all executed on standard unmodified smartphones with active participation from U.S. INDOPACOM, including representation from multiple branches of the United States Armed Services. Lastly, we also continue to execute against our contract with the Space Development Agency through a prime contractor for non-communications on-orbit testing and capability development. The progress we are seeing across both commercial and government activities supports our confidence in reiterating our 2026 revenue guidance of $150 million to $200 million. This outlook is supported by our existing contracted pipeline, with additional upside potential from new government awards. What we are seeing in the first half of 2026 is continued progress in building out the revenue base ahead of a large jump in 2027. As I described on the last call, we see the 2027 revenue opportunity approaching $1 billion, comprised of revenue both long-term contracted or highly recurring in nature. We expect this growth to be driven from One, our scaled network in orbit for cellular broadband service as it becomes available in some of the largest markets worldwide, and 2, providing one or more increasingly scaled use cases for the U.S. government. Taken together, we are steadily executing across our key priorities, remaining focused on the critical near-term objectives like revenue generation, partner ecosystem, and scaled network deployment. I'm now happy to pass the call over to Andy to walk through our financial update.
[00:18:48] Speaker F: Thanks, Scott, and good afternoon, everyone. During the first quarter of 2026, we began executing against our annual revenue plan. We continued our manufacturing expansion across our growing facilities in Texas and beyond. And importantly, as discussed on our 2025 year-end call in March, We took significant steps to raise critical capital to enable funding our constellation in support of our bold objectives in the months ahead. Revenue in Q1 came in consistent with our internal plans. We expect revenue to build sequentially each quarter during 2026, with contributions from both commercial gateway revenue and U.S. government contracts, which I will discuss further in just a moment. Importantly, we remain on track to meet our full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $150 to $200 million. With respect to manufacturing, we continue to progress toward the achievement of our goals to support our active escalating launch schedule through the end of this year and beyond. We currently have Bluebird 11 to Bluebird 33 in advanced stages of assembly, with phased arrays completed through Bluebird 28. Our manufacturing progress positions us well to support our launch target of approximately 45 BlueBird satellites in orbit by the end of 2026. The strength of our balance sheet positions us to complete the full buildout and launch of a constellation of over 100 BlueBird satellites to provide worldwide space mobile service, while also funding the deployment of our controlled spectrum bands on a global basis monetizing the capabilities of our proprietary technology to capture the evolving commercial opportunities related to artificial intelligence, enhancing investment in government space opportunities in, in the United States, reducing our higher interest debt, and pursuing opportunistic investments to accelerate our SpaceMobile services and capabilities. AST SpaceMobile is proud to be the creator and leader in the direct-to-device industry And we continue making investments to move quickly and responsibly to bring space-based cellular broadband connectivity directly to unmodified smartphones. Our intentional focus on investing in operational growth led to higher adjusted operating expenses in Q1 of 2026, consistent with our expectations previously communicated during our 4th quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. Moving to the operating and capital metrics slide, let's review the key metrics for the first quarter in more detail. On the first chart, for the first quarter of 2026, we incurred non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses of $91.2 million versus $95.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. As a reminder, non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses exclude non-cash operating costs, including depreciation and amortization, in stock-based compensation. The quarter-over-quarter decrease of $4.5 million resulted primarily from a $17.6 million decrease in adjusted cost of revenues due to lower revenue in the quarter, together with a $1.9 million decrease in R&D costs, partially offset by a $9.2 million increase in adjusted engineering services costs and a $5.8 million increase in adjusted general and administrative costs. Our Q1 2026 adjusted operating expenses, excluding adjusted cost of revenues, were $79.8 million compared to $66.8 million in Q4 of 2025, which is within the $70 to $80 million guidance for adjusted operating expenses previously provided. The primary drivers of the increase versus the prior quarter were growth in our workforce, including contractors and consultants, our expanded production facilities, and other professional fees, including legal fees related to our spectrum usage rights transactions and regulatory initiatives. Turning towards the second chart on this slide, our capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2026 were approximately $257 million versus approximately $407 million for the fourth quarter of 2025. This figure was made up primarily of capitalized direct materials and labor for our Block II Bluebird satellites, with the balance relating to facility and production equipment expenditures. This amount was below the quarterly guidance of $350 to $425 million that I provided during our last earnings call due to a change in the timing of launch contract payments, which will now be reflected in our Q2 guidance. For the second quarter of 2026, we estimate that our adjusted operating expenses, excluding adjusted cost of revenues, will increase to the range of approximately $85 to $95 million as we further absorb the full quarter cost of our recently expanded workforce and continue growing talent across our organization to scale our efforts to design, manufacture, launch, and operate our growing satellites constellation. as well as pursue the monetization of our L and S-band spectrum usage rights. We expect our capital expenditures to increase in Q2 of 2026 to a range of $575 to $650 million, primarily driven by the timing of launch payments related to our near-term launches, which, as I've previously explained, vary from quarter to quarter. To put this quarterly increase in capital expenditures into context, Had the launch payments been made in Q1 like we originally planned instead of making them in Q2, our guidance for Q2 capital expenditures would have remained in the same general range as Q1. Importantly, our continued spend on growth-related CapEx reflects our increasing satellite production and active orbital launch plans. We continue to estimate that the average capital costs, including direct materials and launch costs, for our constellation of over 90 Block II Bluebird satellites will fall in the range of $21 million to $23 million per satellite, excluding certain initial satellites that are used to validate performance and operations. Our cost per satellite estimates are subject to fluctuations based on dynamic geopolitical factors that could impact our costs. As a reminder, the timing of the changes in our adjusted operating expenses and capital expenditures, as I have just described, could be delayed or may not be realized due to a variety of factors. In the first quarter, we recognized revenue of $14.7 million, primarily driven by commercial gateway deliveries and various U.S. government service milestone achievements. Our revenue declined during the first quarter, as we expected, due to the timing of gateway deployment to our commercial customers and the timing of completion of certain government contract milestones. With respect to revenue generation, we believe we can enable continuous space mobile service across key markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and other strategic markets with the launch and operation of approximately 45 to 60 Bluebird satellites, and additional strategic worldwide markets with the launch and operation of approximately 90 Bluebird satellites. Further, As we continue to launch and deploy our constellation, we will continue to support U.S. government applications currently ongoing and accelerating as our constellation grows. As we discussed in our Q4 2025 earnings call, we expect to generate full-year 2026 revenue in the range of $150 million to $200 million. We manage the top line with a focus on full-year performance. given the quarterly variability inherent in our business, including the timing of contract signings, equipment sales, and milestone achievements. As a result, we believe our revenue performance is best evaluated on a full-year basis. As we continue advancing our launch and network activation initiatives, we expect revenue to grow meaningfully each subsequent quarter this year. We expect revenue to continue to be driven by gateway deliveries, achievement of contracted milestones for the U.S. government, M&O consulting services, with potential upside related to the recognition of initial commercial service revenue. Quarterly revenue will likely vary significantly depending on achievement of milestones and the timing of customer activities. I'd like to remind you that we believe that approximately half of a revenue opportunity within our commercial pipeline this year is already booked or contracted. The remaining portion consists of a combination of advanced-stage opportunities that have not yet been signed as well as net new business we expect to secure over the course of this year. The achievement of our revenue plan remains subject to several contingencies, including the successful launch and deployment of Block 2 BlueBird satellites related to U.S. government applications contractual milestone achievements, critical gateway equipment sales to our M&O partners in support of their anticipated commercialization efforts of space mobile service, and service revenues in connection with the activation of our commercial service provided by our existing and planned deployed and operational satellites. Finally, on the final chart on the slide, our cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash as of March 31st, 2026 was approximately $3.5 billion, inclusive of cash raised in February via the convertible notes offering with a 2.25% 10-year coupon at an effective strike price of $116.30 per Our balance sheet continues to provide us with financial flexibility to make further investments to expedite the timing of and augment the capabilities of our space mobile service. Consistent with our last update, we do not have any plans to pursue additional convertible debt in 2026. In closing, we're off to a solid start to the year at AST SpaceMobile. And critically, our 2026 objectives fully remain in place. With full recognition of a significant amount of hard work ahead of us, revenue is building on plan and satellite manufacturing is increasing to support our orbital launch campaign. We look forward to sharing successful launch milestones with you in Q2 and throughout the second half of 2026. Thank you for your continued support as we continue the hard work of connecting the unconnected at AST SpaceMobile. And with that, this completes the presentation component of our business update call, and I'll pass it back to Scott.
[00:30:07] Speaker E: Thank you, Andy. Before we go to the queue of analyst questions, we'd like to address a few of the questions submitted by our investors. Operator, could you please start us off with the first question?
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Scott from Indiana asks, historically, guidance for Block II Bluebirds has targeted peak download speeds of 120 megabits per second. presumably requiring your proprietary ASIC chips. In the last quarterly update, it was stated that FM1, which does not have this ASIC chip, is expected to greatly exceed 120 megabits peak download speeds. Can you clarify current expectations on how FM1 versus ASIC-enabled Bluebirds are expected to perform?
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Thank you, Coach, for the question. Well, this morning we did announce that from the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the ocean, on international waters, we did achieve peak data rates very close to 100 megabits per second. As we— into a standard device without any modification to the device. Neither required any firmware or software upgrade to the device, this device as is today. With the BV6, which is already in orbit, and BV8, 9, and 10, we expect to nearly double that capacity. We think that this, in addition to AI features that we will implement into the satellites, large block of spectrum that we'll be adding to the network, particularly the L-band and the S-band MSS spectrums that we plan to add into the constellation, and AI spectrum management features that help us to multiply the perceived performance of the network make this a complete change of what is possible, far, far ahead of any other technology that is attempting to enter the market.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Andreas from New York asks, you have repeatedly emphasized that you are in a race against yourself in the field of D2C broadband technology. Given the increasing attempts by other companies to enter the market, is this still true? And what leads do you currently see over your competitors? What role do your patents play, play in keeping the competition at bay?
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Thank you, Andreas. That's a great question. Well, we always from the very, very beginning have focused on delivering cellular broadband, and for which you need a very large array, you need spectrum, and you need the ability to integrate that to partners' MNOs. On that end, we have a very unique position. We had access through our MNO partners to around 3 billion subscribers. We are delivering broadband capacity, provided obviously there is enough spectrum attached to the satellites today, with in-orbit satellites. As I said earlier, we are on the hundreds of megabits already. We plan to nearly double that as we continue to activate 8, 9, and 10, as we launch them in the next few weeks. And then when you put in perspective that when you combine a very, very large satellite array with significant block of spectrum that are a combination between IMT, MNO, partner provider spectrum with our own MSS, we have We have access to more spectrum than anybody else also. So we believe that as of today, we are the only technology that have a space-based cellular broadband capability given the size and our architecture and the 3,900 patent and patent pending claims that we have around our technology.
[00:34:54] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Ben from Virginia asks, can you update us on your composite readiness specifically? Are you now manufacturing all structural carbon fiber reinforced polymer components and reflectors entirely in-house? And if not, is the plan to?
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Thank you, Ben, for the question. Um, listen, the, the, the The way that we stack the satellites is think about tuna cans where you put 3 of them, one on top of another on the Falcon 9, up to 8 of them on the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket, or up to 5 of them in the Vulcan ULA rocket. So that structure It's our design. It was a very, very difficult design to achieve because everything that you have in terms of mass gets multiplied by the G of the rocket. So you have an extraordinary amount of forces that get applied to the bottom satellites in that stack. But the answer is yes, we are now producing them.
[00:36:12] Speaker G: Okay.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: rate. We own all the IP of how this is done. We are extending— we did grow— we have over 1,000 people dedicated to build these composite structures all across our satellites. And we are now also extending and automating and robotizing how we do these structures in Midland. All of this to achieve and keep our 6 satellites per month fully assembled every month. Where the composite structure, it is a very, very important aspect of what we needed to do. So we are fully vertically integrated. We own the IP. We control the manufacturing of everything on our satellites, around 95% of the bill of materials from the composite structures, the new composite structures. That's how you see that in the pictures of the manufacturing, they turn from aluminum structures to composite. That's why they look black. And then, but we also own and control everything down to our ASIC in the supply chain. how we build and produce our satellites.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Scott from Indiana also asks, any perspective you can share on progress made related to Golden Dome, Halo Europa, or other government contracts?
[00:37:47] Speaker E: I'll take that one. So as I said in my remarks, you know, the backdrop for U.S. government contracts is— continues to be really strong. We most recently saw budget request for the Space Force of over $70 billion, which was by far the largest, and there was a heavy emphasis on space activities. So it's, it's a good environment for our capability to be maturing. And we've been doing a lot of both communications and non-communications with, with the agencies who are the big buyers right now of space capabilities. So this is the right backdrop. We have the right capability. Remember, We're currently deploying the largest ever phased arrays in low Earth orbit, and that gives us really an unprecedented capability to go to regular, small, low-profile handsets as well as do radar capabilities. And when you look at the backdrop of awards and budgets over the last 3 to 6 months, there's been a real strong uptick, as expected. In the in the Space Force budget and in allocations related to Golden Dome, and specifically, you know we're in a stage now where RFPs are being issued, awards are being made for for key elements of Golden Dome that that all relate to us things that you see that are space-based radar and others. So this is a this is a really big moment for us. You're going to see some revenue coming in through U.S. government that's going to be a big contributor to our 2026 revenue, and for 2027. Those awards that we'll receive or expect to receive over the next 6 months are going to be very significant to that effort. And with that, I'd like to thank our shareholders for submitting those questions. Operator, let's open up the call to analyst questions now.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Scholl with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
[00:40:10] Speaker G: Great.
[00:40:13] Speaker D: Thank you for taking the questions. Now that you've had a few weeks to digest the Can you just walk us through what happened with Bluebird 7 and what gives you comfort this will not repeat going forward and that New Glenn can scale accordingly? And last quarter you mentioned you began to integrate your satellites with another heavy launch vehicle, and I believe I heard you say ULA earlier. Where does the integration process stand, and could we see you rely upon them this year? Is this more a consideration for '27 and beyond?
[00:40:38] Speaker G: Thank you.
[00:40:38] Speaker E: Hey, Chris, I'll dive in. You know, we were pretty open on Bluebird 7, you know, the day of. You know, we knew what happened immediately, and we were very open on what it is. And at the end of the day, remember, we have 30 through 33 satellites in advanced stage of production at the factory. So while it was a loss, we're on to the next. So, yeah, I would say that we're working closely with Blue. It's— they've— they're working through the investigation. An upper stage anomaly like this is not uncommon early in programs. And, you know, we feel optimistic about them getting back to the pad soon. And when you look at their cadence for the year, you know, we all know that they landed their booster, which was a great milestone for their cadence. And now they have 2 boosters, you know, sitting in their integration facility ready to get into the cycle. So we think the outlook there—
[00:41:36] Speaker D: looks good.
[00:41:37] Speaker E: And, uh, and like I said, we're optimistic. And on the, uh, the second part of the question, uh, you know, we mentioned that we have contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin and others. Uh, we're also doing some integration activities in there with others to get ready, uh, for potential launches. And so listen, we, we, we've, we've designed the rocket, as you know, in our business strategy to be launch vehicle agnostic, and we're buyers of launch and across the entire heavy launcher footprint. So, so we're— we were prepared for this years ago with our strategy. We think we selected the right partners, and we've got good partners on top of that that we're working with.
[00:42:18] Speaker D: Okay, great.
[00:42:22] Speaker G: Thank you.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Cereal with Warehouse Capital Partners. Please proceed with your question.
[00:42:35] Speaker G: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just a quick follow-up. Is, is there a timeline associated with the, the FAA investigation of when you would expect that to be concluded? And then looking to the expected commercial launch of services at the end of this year, how many MNOs are you expecting to be live at launch? And what are you guys thinking about in terms of the, the ground station number that we should be expecting by the end of calendar '26?
[00:43:04] Speaker E: So, hey, Scott, uh, to the first part of the question on Blue, uh, no, there hasn't been a publicly disclosed timeline, but like I said, these are— these sorts of investigations are, are pretty commonplace, uh, and there's been some, you know, good track record recently. So, uh, with other launchers who have had similar issues. So listen, we think, uh, We're really focused on our next launch, obviously, with Falcon 9 and the next 3 Bluebirds. But like I said, we're optimistic with Blue Origin. And I think, you know, we'll be in a good position there. But as you know, we have a multi-launcher strategy. That's been the strategy from the get-go. And in terms of— what was the second question again, Scott?
[00:43:46] Speaker G: Oh, Scott, just in terms of the number of MNOs you would expect to be live with, you know, provided you got 45 satellites up in the sky in the 4th quarter, you know, how many carriers, how many covered subs should we be thinking about in terms of that are addressable from day 1 of launch?
[00:44:03] Speaker E: Well, it's a global network, as you know, so we put a lot more disclosure in our remarks today about the regions we're focused on and the countries we're focused on. So, All in all, where we are currently doing ground integration efforts, some which are quite advanced, like in the United States and other countries in Europe, some others that are getting started. It's a pipeline. There's a lot of countries to focus on. But just on the countries listed in our deck, you see a population coverage of about 2.9 billion. So in terms of how we prioritized amongst that, you've heard from us before, key markets like the US, Canada, UK, Japan, Saudi. So we're, we're looking at that list and it's growing every day, but we wanted to give a little bit more incremental detail today with that in our deck and in our remarks on the other countries we're focused on.
[00:44:59] Speaker G: Great. Thanks so much.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Funk with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
[00:45:12] Speaker G: Yeah, great. Yeah, thank you for the question. So I want to go back to the launch target. I think you talked last quarter about stacking up to 8 satellites per launch. And so just wondering about the hurdles, authorizations required to get to the 8. And then Abel, earlier in the call, you mentioned deploying AI edge computing features, I think, in the next generation of satellite. I want to get a better understanding of how that's going to improve either the efficiency or performance of next-generation satellites.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: Yeah, let me answer the first question. As I explained earlier in the call, we do have now the technology and we are manufacturing that at rate, which is basically the technology to be able to to stack multiple launches, multiple satellites in a single launch. The way that we do it is basically on New Glenn we can stack up to 8, in Vulcan we can stack up to 5, and in Falcon 9 we can stack up to 3. And this is self-contained. The structure is full composite. It is manufactured under our IP. We are also growing. We have over 1,000 people just dedicated to build these structures where they are very, very difficult to build and test. But we are now very close to getting 6 of them every month and being able to stack it with each of the different launch partners. To your second question about AI, we are not in the play of hyperscaler systems in space, but what we are incorporating to our satellites, which you will start seeing in the production batches towards the end of the year, is the ability to edge compute and load AI capabilities onboard that can be very efficiently integrated also to the UEs for a variety of uses around AI. As it relates to AI spectrum management, basically, as you fly, You have resources to do— to administrate dynamically that are basically power and spectrum. As you know, we can tune within 1,100 MHz of spectrum and then we have blocks of spectrum with our MNO partners that's called IMT spectrum. that we can tune country by country, location by location. And also we had our MSS. And the AI spectrum management is a system behind all of that that basically predicts traffic, predicts location, predicts where people are, and then allocates that very, very intelligently. Remember, on a satellite you have 2,800 square kilometers of view of what's going on underneath you. And AI basically has the ability to predict where the traffic will be as the satellites move and dynamically allocate resources into the satellite. That's typically either power or spectrum. And the end result of that is that the perceived user perception of what amount of spectrum it is used or how efficient it is It is a multiple because you basically can play with the whole field of view in how you allocate dynamically the spectrum square kilometer by square kilometer.
[00:49:29] Speaker G: Great. Thank you so much for that.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Crawford with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.
[00:49:42] Speaker G: Thank you. Just to clarify, with the AST-5000 ASIC, that's been expected to enable 120 megabits per second peak data speeds, but is it the AI spectrum management that gets you up closer to 200 megabits per second by year-end? And then also on the non-communications capabilities that you're developing, in conjunction with the, with the SDA.
[00:50:12] Speaker D: Would I be—
[00:50:13] Speaker G: would we be correct in assuming we're talking about mid-band military radar? So that's something that we're not going to see with the initial Bluebirds that are launching now. But once you incorporate L-band and— excuse me— S-band into the satellites.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Yeah, let me start with the, with the with the defense capability. I will not be able to describe it on this forum, but basically it's a non-communication capability that uses the same hardware that we use on our commercial satellites, and that's being used today. And as Scott mentioned, they're using it today. They plan to extend drastically how they use it. And that is a known communication application for defense purposes. The, the, the—
[00:51:15] Speaker E: And before we leave that topic, Mike, it's important to note that that does not require mid-band spectrum. That's something we can do with low-band spectrum, which we're deploying, which we've deployed today, right?
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Correct. Then, as it relates to the ASIC, the ASIC is complete, it's been incorporated into the production line. The ASIC basically allowed us to upgrade the amount of bandwidth we can manage with the— for each satellite. So, on the FPGA satellites, we had around 1 GHz of spectrum. With the ASIC satellite, we have 10 GHz of spectrum. So it's a factor of 10 increase on number of gigahertz that can be constantly used per satellite. The peak data rates are actually not dependent on the FPGA or ASIC. That's how many of those connections you can have simultaneously and do not rely on the AI in order to get to the 100 megabits per second that we have on NSPGA satellites that are actually the smaller initial satellites. And we expect to double the 98 megabits per second that we have if we are using the BV6, which is already on orbit, and the 8, 9, and 10 that we will launch here very quickly that do not require the ASIC or the AI management, and that's pure peak data rate per cell. The AI management is basically when you— it's a way to intelligently distribute that big pipe of 10 GHz or 1 GHz, depending on the version of the satellite, intelligently where the users are and predicting where the users are going to be. in order to allocate a slice of that 10 GHz where the traffic is needed and do it dynamically and proactively using an AI agent of our own.
[00:53:33] Speaker G: Okay, thank you very much.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Craft with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
[00:53:48] Speaker D: Hi, good afternoon. Apologies for the, the multi-part kind of long question, but I really had a few questions I wanted to ask you around launch. I guess first, do you have contracted launch capacity to do an average of basically one launch per month from June through December? Because I think that's what you need to do in order to get close to that 45 number. And then how diversified is the launch mix? And what if you can only do, say, one more New Glenn launch this year? Could you still get close to that 45? You know, I don't know. This is the first time I think you've mentioned Vulcan. So I was wondering, you know, how much launch you were able to secure there and if that could fill that gap in. And then it sounds like you've made great progress on the manufacturing side. With 11 through 33 in production, is the next batch of satellites going to be ready to ship for, say, a July launch? And then the last thing I wanted to ask you about is On the stacking, do you sort of need to work your way up to the max of those ranges? In other words, you know, on the next New Glenn, can you go right to 8, or do you have to— or would you prefer to say do 3 or 4 to make sure it goes smoothly, and then, you know, 5 to 6, and then go to 7 to 8? Or are you just going to kind of fill these things up going forward? So Thank you.
[00:55:27] Speaker E: Hey, Brian. So, yes, we do have contracted launch capacity to meet our target for 2026. And the way to think about it is basically, you know, a handful of Blue Origin launches and a handful of SpaceX or equivalent launches. And that's what gets us to the approximately 45. You know, we know that Blue Origin just suffered an anomaly, right? We're optimistic about their return to the pad, and the fact that they land— they have 2 boosters is a massive support for the cadence that we have always expected and that we have contracted. So that's how we think about the mix and how we get to that 45 number. On the manufacturing side, we definitely— yeah, we have capacity to to keep knocking out launches one after another. Absolutely. You can see that on the page in the deck. So given where we are, we expect to have more satellites each month to be ready for launch. And we'll, of course, as we have, update the public, you know, 30 to 60, 90 days ahead of launch as those are down-selected and confirmed. And then on stacking, I think you pretty much captured it. Brian, I mean, we expect on the next New Glenn we'll launch 4 satellites. Part of that is kind of ramping into the stacking capability and also, of course, managing where they are in the program. But, you know, we're very mature now in the 3-stack and we're going to be doing that very shortly. And the 4-stack likely shortly thereafter. And then, yeah, 6, 7, 8, you know, that's how we get to our— our constellation size, right? That's why we've selected the vehicles we have and plan to make use of as much of the capacity of each of the rockets as we have available.
[00:57:22] Speaker D: That's very helpful, Scott. If I could just ask one follow-up, where does ULA fit into that? You mentioned handful of Blue Origin, handful of SpaceX. Is Vulcan sort of the backup, or are you going to use them as well? Just curious, you know, why that came into the conversation today.
[00:57:41] Speaker E: Well, our strategy has always been to have many launch providers, right? And so I put that in that category. We've been developing other heavy launch providers for some time, and we'll have more updates as appropriate. But right now, you know, we plan to use Blue Origin and SpaceX and equivalents to the max.
[00:58:03] Speaker D: Okay, thank you.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Louis DePalma with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
[00:58:15] Speaker D: Good afternoon, Abel, Scott, and Andy. Um, Abel, great. Um, Abel and, um, Scott and Andy, what do you view as the, the impact of Amazon's acquisition of Globalstar, and do you view any potential partnership opportunities with Amazon as they seem to be very much in the early stages of entering this industry?
[00:58:49] Speaker A: Listen, we— that's a complicated transaction in the sense that That capacity and that capability, it is already on the phones through the iPhones. And basically, we see that capability as an SOS emergency system. And we also see that here really at the end of the day, to provide broadband, you need to have hundreds of megahertz of spectrum allocated. So we're obviously here talking about, in the case of Globalstar, on a very small fraction of that. So we don't see that changing dramatically in the foreseeable future of what the capability is today, and we don't see any real change of the landscape at least for the next several years. When you think about some of our partners and you combine their spectrum, IMT, 3GPP, already on the phone spectrum that they are allocating to us, plus our 50 MHz of spectrum in MSS either on the L-band and the S-band, you're talking about in some cases with some partners all the way up to 100 MHz of allocated spectrum. So our focus is broadband. Our focus is— of course, that broadband will come as we enable spectrum in a combination of our partner spectrum in low-band and then later our mid-band, low-band spectrum in the L-band. We see that that's a complete different proposition and different. And we quite frankly, nobody is nowhere close to the capabilities that we have technically to deliver hundreds of megabits directly to a phone from something that is flying at 70,000 miles per hour, 500 kilometers above you. And that competitive advantage of that capability is unique and that's That's what we make available to our MNO partners.
[01:01:18] Speaker G: Great.
[01:01:21] Speaker D: And another question, following up on the trial that was announced this morning that generated the peak downlink of 99 megabits per second, do you have a sense of what the average downlink would look like for Block 2 satellites when you and your partners launch the trials later this year?
[01:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the talk about peak and average is tricky because it also depends on what is transiting through the applications on the phone. So that's why we tend to focus about peak. But the peak data rate for our larger BB-6, which is in orbit, and A-9 and A-10, it is approximately double of what we disclosed this morning. So you're talking about closer to the 200 megabits per second. And that's peak. And average depends what you're transiting, is it small packages or large packages and how you interact.
[01:02:32] Speaker G: Okay.
[01:02:33] Speaker A: But in terms of network capacity, it's pretty much double of what we disclosed this morning, around double of what we disclosed this morning.
[01:02:42] Speaker B: Great.
[01:02:45] Speaker G: Thanks, everyone.
[01:02:45] Speaker B: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Quilty with Quilty Space. Please proceed with your question.
[01:02:56] Speaker G: Thanks, guys. I just wanted to do a quick follow-up on the Excuse me, the non-communication satellite effort on the defense side. You know, since your satellites were specifically designed as a communication platform, does that imply that you're going to have to do, you know, large redesign of satellites and adding things like optical cross-links and onboard processing and pointing mechanisms? Or— and if so, is that something that would be customer you know, NRE-funded or something that, you know, you're footing the capital for?
[01:03:32] Speaker A: Hey, Chris. I mean, we are— we didn't start working with our Department of War this year, not even last year. This has been many, many, many, many years in the coming. So, all the capabilities that they require are already built in in what we are producing on the line. There will be additions as per the request that I'm not permitted to discuss, but basically the core capability of what they're using, it was incorporated many years back.
[01:04:11] Speaker G: Great. And speaking of government defense budgets, assuming the administration, you know, gets through this reconciliation package, there's a huge generational budget increase. Can, can you name the specific programs where you think AST, you know, has an opportunity to target? Or are you expecting that most of your opportunities are going to be on the classified side?
[01:04:37] Speaker A: It is a combination, and a lot have to— a lot related, as the, as the government have made it public by themselves around the Golden Dome. But we are basically in all aspects of government usage. We're present from FirstNet, from the classified, all the way to the Golden Dome. So for communications and non-communication capabilities. We We see ourselves as a very important asset to our government, multi-utility. And as I said, this has been years developing for them. They're using it today. And we expect a very significant growth in revenue and opportunity in all aspects of government usage.
[01:05:43] Speaker G: Thank you.
[01:05:44] Speaker A: of our technology.
[01:05:45] Speaker G: All right, thank you.
[01:05:48] Speaker B: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Pendi with ClearStreet. Please proceed with your question.
[01:05:58] Speaker G: Hey guys, just a real quick one.
[01:06:01] Speaker A: When you do hit 45 satellites on the launch side, what is the commissioning time period we should be thinking about until sort of Deactivation with service with MNOs? Yeah, currently, you know, we do it on the first satellites. I mean, these satellites are the largest satellite phased arrays ever deployed, so it took longer than it will take on the coming satellites. So the target is 45 days. That's what we are planning with the MNOs. Every time that we launch, in 45 days we should be using either 5G or 4G connectivity through them. But as we keep launching, we plan to reduce that timeframe from 45 all the way down to 2 weeks. We don't want to promise that in the early batches of satellites.
[01:06:58] Speaker D: Great.
[01:06:59] Speaker G: And then just one more. As you're looking at this multi-launch strategy plan and adding you know, new launch partners.
[01:07:07] Speaker B: Any thoughts if Neutron from Rocket Labs is available in 2027 on what type of capacity and if that would be a potential other partner in the launch strategy?
[01:07:18] Speaker E: Hey, yeah, we're not going to comment on, you know, other launch providers, but you've heard our commentary today about who we're looking at. But we like launch providers. We like to launch with them. Our satellites are designed to fit in all the standard 5-meter fairings and larger ones as well. So, so we— I think that's what we'll say at this time.
[01:07:40] Speaker G: Okay, great. I appreciate it.
[01:07:45] Speaker D: Thanks.
[01:07:45] Speaker B: Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Scott Wisniewski for closing remarks.
[01:07:57] Speaker E: Thank you, operator. We want to thank all of our shareholders and research analysts for joining the call. Really appreciate it. Have a great week.
[01:08:04] Speaker B: Thank you. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.
[01:08:21] Speaker A: Welcome back 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. We're doing something very, very big. And I think with this technology, we can really affect a billion lives. KFT Space Mobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular mobile 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 to do the animals. Listen. Mmm, waffles.