Anpanman - Launch Agnosticism and Market Volatility

[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: Hey everyone, thanks for joining. Thought I'd fire a quick space up and talk about a few topics. Uh, first one is AST SpaceMobile and space sector in general. Um, I didn't really have an agenda, I was just gonna speak off the cuff. Um, just wanted to cover a few things. But yeah, today is a red day for space. Uh, I think there's a number of names that are down 12, 13, 14, 15%. AST, um, I guess we've paid our dues and we took lumps on Friday. So our stock is only down 9%, but it's a red day. And I know there's a number of people who have been asking, what's causing space stocks to be down? Well, they've had a pretty tremendous run-up. And so when you have something like Blue Origin, that happened last week, seems like forever ago, actually not really. It seems like it was It was yesterday. But, uh, when you have something like that happen, um, you know, that, that can cause a pullback in the sector, which is what we're seeing today. And so I don't think it's anything in particular. Um, and just as a reminder, I tweeted this out before, but the SpaceX roadshow kicks off on Thursday, June 4th, and they're expecting to price that deal on June 11th. My guess is that they'll do maybe 1 or 2 days in Europe, and then they'll do the rest of the days in the US. They'll hit up the major cities and they might be doing some Zoom meetings as well. But that is likely going to create some momentum. Not that we already haven't had that before, but I think it's going to continue to draw more interest in space. Because this is really the first time outside of just reading the prospectus, that a number of institutions are actually going to see the management of SpaceX and they're going to learn about the different pillars of business that they're attacking. And then if they're interested, they'll pull the COVID back and learn more about some of the companies that are focused on these areas today that are more, as Cook mentioned over the weekend, more pure-play names. But yeah, today the stocks are down 10%, 11%, 13%. That's not out of the ordinary. And so if you've been investing in the sector for a number of years, this is something that you're used to and it's just part of being in an early high beta, high risk sector. You're going to have swings sometimes like this where you have a period of consolidation after a massive run-up. It's just natural. So yeah, I wouldn't think too much about it. It is a little weird to see Virgin Galactic, SPCE, that some people are claiming that perhaps WallStreetBets guys are mistaking this for SpaceX, which I find kind of funny. No, I think it's just sometimes, especially these companies that are heavily shorted, people trade them and they become trading vehicles. And so SPCE has actually been doing quite well. You saw this happen with Momentus and some of these other small-cap names where They became trading vehicles, they traded up, and then of course Momentus and SatLogic and SIDU, they used that ramp-up in stock price to raise more money, which is usually what happens when these things double, triple, or whatever. And so I would not be surprised if Virgin Galactic, we find out this evening or tomorrow, they come out and raise money, just given the stock price rebound that they've had. But, um, yeah, there's been a lot of, you know, people writing about AST SpaceMobile potential launch, um, all these different things. And I, I think, you know, there's, there's also people demanding that the company have an 8-K and issue PR and update guidance on, um, how many satellites will be in orbit by the end of the week, uh, end of the year. I will just, you know, just to make sure that people are level set, um, the 45 satellites was an approximate number. And this is something that they, I think at least most people realized, like, was a stretch goal. And so I can pretty much, you know, just from my own calculation, can say that they're probably not going to get there without New Glenn. New Glenn was going to be a contributor for the launch campaign for the rest of the year. However, the company is going to make moves, right? Like, there are contingency plans. So I think it's important that people understand When you have a $40 billion company and you've got a few points of failure or bottleneck, then as a board, a responsible board and management team who understands that this stuff is hard. And by the way, I'm a Blue Origin fan and I had hoped that they were successful and were able to get up to a rapid cadence, which they did demonstrate vehicle success, especially the boosters, you know, flights 2 and 3 were a success. Unfortunately, flight 3 did not reach, uh, did not put, um, you know, our satellite in the proper orbit, which, uh, you know, it's early program. And I think that was a, a big wake-up call for all of us who just, you know, have gotten used to SpaceX and, uh, the Falcon 9 workhorse. Um, but then of course, when you see Starship, you know, have its mishaps, uh, which is part of the process, and Lourdes and New Glenn go through the same thing, it's a stark reminder that this stuff, you can't take it for granted. And for something like a Falcon 9 that has a tremendous amount of flight heritage and is able to have that stable cadence, like that's pretty much a luxury, right? And so I think it's important that folks understand that, you know, these, When planning for the future, that's specifically why the company AST SpaceMobile built their satellites to be launch agnostic. So they can go up on any standard, inside any standard fairing on any multitude of launch vehicles. Because there was this point of view early on that they needed that flexibility in case you have From a competitive standpoint, let's say if launch became tight, it might be hard getting launch from one provider versus the other, or maybe there's geopolitical stuff. I mean, we saw early on AST SpaceMobile when they were supposed to launch BlueWalker 3, that was originally supposed to go up on a Soyuz out of Kazakhstan. And then of course the conflict with Ukraine erupted and then the company thankfully didn't send the satellite over there in order to be launched. And so had that happened, they sent the satellite there and then it sat there, stuck in no man's land, that would have been really bad, right? And so, so the company has always planned for these contingencies, and I think it's important to give them time to work this stuff out, and they'll update the market when they're ready, right? And, and as part of that, when you have a board of directors and you have a management team that's capable and they understand these risks, Blue Origin, from their perspective, was going to be a huge potential game-changing type of launch provider for them in terms of bringing costs down and being a partner that had a lot of capacity, which by the way, the company could buy a lot of capacity or can buy a lot of capacity on Falcon 9, but it comes at a cost. It's a bit more expensive. And it's funny because over the weekend, someone, Paranya, was correcting Tim Ferriss because the guy, for whatever— well, not for whatever reason, but he just doesn't know some of the economics around Blue Origin. New Glenn, which, um, for those that don't know, um, AST SpaceMobile was an early believer in Blue Origin New Glenn. And so back in 2024, in that fall, we signed a multi-launch agreement with Blue Origin. Of course, you know, we did as well with SpaceX and, uh, ISRO at the time. But we took a bet. We took a bet that this vehicle was going to be ready and, uh, was going to get to a reasonable cadence within a reasonable time frame. And as part of that bet, We are one of the few companies out there that are going to launch well over, what, 400 tons into space. We are a marquee customer. And so for Blue Origin, it was a big coup. It was a big win. And as a result, in part of those negotiations, we— and Tim Ferriss doesn't know this because he never talks to management, but for those of us that have talked to management, part of the economics is that there was There was no need to put down, and this was part of the attraction too, there was no need to put down prepayments for launch. And so, you know, with that risk of going with a new vehicle, there were also some benefits. Like it was a gamble in some respects that if this vehicle was successful and got up to regular cadence, not only would it be cheap in terms of the per satellite launch, but then also it didn't require much in terms of upfront capital. to reserve those slots, right? And so now we find ourselves in this situation where that's getting pushed out, which is fine. I mean, it's gonna take 6, 7 months, right? And that's probably optimistic, 6 months, but maybe it takes a little longer. In the meantime, we will launch with Falcon 9, and that's part of the contingency plan. And the company will have to, they'll have to speak with SpaceX and they'll have to figure out, okay, if you want additional launches, outside of what we've contracted. And so the question is like, do we have 10? Do we have 5? Do we have 15? It's unclear. It's unclear what we had before, but we do have launches and there is the ability to pull forward more launches, right? As most people know, SpaceX Falcon 9 launches very frequently and a majority, a vast majority of the cargoes that are launched are Starlink. And so part of it is, you know, are you willing to pay pull a sticker or, um, you know, whatever it is, whatever the negotiations are, um, in order to pull forward that, that capacity. And, um, you know, I think some people will have pushed back and said, well, you know, these— it's really hard, the manifest is full. No, it's not that hard actually. Um, it, it is hard for people who are not, uh, filling out an entire Falcon 9, who, um, aren't looking for dedicated launches, so looking for rideshare, that, that is super hard. that's super hard to find a ride. But if you are willing to buy an entire launch, um, and, uh, it's not expendable, it's, you know, it's one that returns back either to the launch pad, or, uh, if you need additional, um, you need to launch additional weight, then something that lands out in the barge, then, and you're willing to pay for it, then it's available. So I think it's important that people just take a few deep breaths and let the company do what they need to do, and they'll update the market when ready. Um, which I think I mentioned before, uh, you know, we are on track to launch in about 2 weeks. And so based off of precedent, I think we'll probably get a firm target date, which of course can move, but we'll get a firm target date probably by the end of this week. And so we might get an update on where they are, um, in terms of, of launch, and we might find out like, oh, they've, they've signed additional launch agreements or whatever it is, right? Um, but I think it's important that with SpaceX, we, we already have a multi-launch agreement And that framework is in place. We can add options, add more launches. Um, and so just give the company time to, to work that out. Uh, cause some people are like, oh, they need to 8K on Friday or Monday. No, they don't. They don't need to 8K. What if, what if they can fill out additional launches where they're still going to hit the 45, right? And so there's no need to update the market. Or what if it's going to be 30 or what if it's going to be 35 in total or 25, who knows? Um, but I think it is important that, um, we're at this point where that target for year end is kind of irrelevant in some respects. Like, the key thing for me, which it has been for this entire time, is the cadence between, you know, the production cadence between batches, right? And so how quickly is the next batch of 3 going to be shipped? And then what is the rate of change? And then after that, what's the next batch of 3? And then after that, right? And so, you know, we've actually, we have space now at Cape Canaveral to store satellites. And so obviously the company got to a point, is at a point where they believe that they're going to be producing quite a bit here. And so they'll be shipping more and more satellites down to Cape Canaveral. So I think it's important for folks to kind of focus on that as a metric. The other thing, which I think Cook talked about, I didn't get a chance to listen to it Spacefully because I was so tired yesterday and I had an AirPod in one ear, and I was listening to it a little bit, and then I fell asleep. But, um, there is an important point that I think he, he might have touched on, and he definitely tweeted about it. But, um, the, the whole idea about ULA Vulcan Centaur, um, you know, there— so this is a launch vehicle that is currently, um, you know, is currently down right now because of 2 anomalies that didn't, you know, didn't hurt the missions, but, um, were anomalies nonetheless. So in the prior 2 Vulcan Centaur missions, um, these solid rocket boosters, which I think, uh, I forgot who produces them, but, um, nozzles like popped off of, um, one on each, each of those launches, and yet the rocket still was okay and got to, got to, um, orbit, um, the payloads. But, um, that, that investigation I think is supposed to conclude sometime in September or maybe August, and then that vehicle will be back online. What the company, from, I guess, what, you know, in terms of disclosures, they've said that they've booked with ULA, Vulcan Centaur. It's probably, in terms of contribution, you might be looking at one launch at the end of this year, and then that could pick up over 2027. There is some optionality, meaning that if cargo gets pushed out, then we'll have cargo to slot right in and oftentimes with government customers, that tends to be the case where, um, the rocket's ready to go and then there's no cargo. And then, um, and then with that, uh, we can slot our satellites into that rocket launch. Um, this actually happened with Vulcan Centaur as part of its certification process. I think it was like in December or November of last year, but they actually launched a dummy payload on Vulcan Centaur because they needed to get that flight off so that they could be certified for government missions. And no, but that said, like the original cargo was not ready and then they couldn't, they tried to scramble and find another customer and no one was ready. And so they just launched that rocket with a dummy payload. And so that's part of this industry where sometimes whether it's on Vulcan Centaur ULA, or it could be Ariane or any number of other vehicles, sometimes the customers don't show up. And so in that case, having a company like AST SpaceMobile is helpful because we're gonna be pumping out all these satellites. And so imagine a situation where the manifest frees up and then we're able to get, you know, 5 or 6, or actually 5 on Vulcan Centaur to go up. The other thing is that There is this idea of NSSL, which is National Security Launch. If the government deems it necessary and that you have priority for launch, then they can not clear the decks necessarily, but they can put you at the front of the line for ULA Vulcan Centaur, also for SpaceX Falcon 9, or any US-based vehicles that the government works with. And so there is this possibility that perhaps we might get pushed to the front of the line if there is a need, right? And so I do think there are a number of, or there's a bit of defense work that's going on, and there could be some announcements in the coming, call it 2 months, 2 to 3 months maybe, where that could push us up the line, right? And so this is why I mention all these things, because it's important that, you know, We don't know, and I don't think the company knows just yet, which part of Plan B or Plan B sub 1 or Plan B sub 2 or Plan B sub 3, which path is going to take or which path they're going to take, because I think they're still trying to work out all that stuff. But just, I think as investors, if you're invested and trust management up to this point, you just got to give them some room to operate because ultimately we will get updated when it's time and we'll find out what additional launches they have and the contingencies that are in place. And maybe they'll update the market on instead of 45 by the end of the year, it could be 35 or 40. But if you push it out, the timeframe out by, I don't know, 1, 2, 3, 4 months, is that really going to matter in the grand scheme of things?
[00:17:59] Speaker A: No.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Not really. Um, and you know, it— this morning I saw this. I think it was a Mandarin speaker, someone, um, who was criticizing Shai, Shai Ballor's, um— I think that's how you pronounce the last name. Uh, he had tweeted about AST and, and SpaceX Starlink, and then this, this Chinese, um, this Mandarin-speaking, uh, Twitter account was saying that, um, oh, you know, Starlink is going to dominate the market. The V2 satellite, which is the new direct-to-cell version of their current one, which is obviously very crappy, but this person was claiming like, oh, they're going to launch it next year, no problem. And then you also have these big competitors like Amazon with Globalstar and Iridium. And clearly this person truly doesn't understand the dynamics of the direct-to-device market. I was tempted. I was very tempted 'Cause I saw some responses too in Mandarin, um, with people who, uh, you know, they, they clearly didn't understand the dynamics and the competitive landscape. And I was about to tweet and then I was, I just like put a laughing face 'cause I didn't want to get into it. 'Cause it's, it's like, um, it would be a full-time job to respond to that thread and that person in particular. So I decided to leave it alone. But, um, but yeah, I mean, it's a stark reminder that, uh, yeah. Starlink V2, it's not going to be incorporated into phones, the spectrum from EchoStar, until 2028. Starship has to get to commercial cadence. And as we've discussed a few times, the really tough part is reusability for a second stage. And so is that 2029, 2030? Who knows? It seems like a far way away, but actually time goes by pretty fast. And for these all these rocket programs, um, it takes time, right? And I, I did see like some Rocket Lab, um, shareholders last week, uh, kind of saying, oh man, this Blue Origin news is bullish for us and it's going to be great, um, because that, that vehicle's offline, uh, and that, that you can make the case for that to a degree, right? Like, I think that's, that's probably true, like the program gets slowed down a little bit. And so to the extent, I mean, New Glenn is not competitive, directly competitive with Neutron, right? Neutron can take 3 Bluebird satellites, I think, at most, um, in an expendable form. And then, uh, Blue Origin New Glenn 7x2 could take 8 satellites, and then, uh, 9x4 eventually will take, you know, somewhere around 12. But, uh, I think, you know, this person who had posted about, um, about AST being more risky because it was dependent on launch providers and you have something like New Glenn happen, That's true. I mean, we're dependent on launch providers, but there's one workhorse out there. And then there's this whole host of other companies that are trying to do it. And again, like if you want to pay, you can go on some of these more expensive options.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: But you know, this is space and we're trying to support the industry and as a result, hopefully getting better economics out of it. But I think for this particular Rocket Lab holder, it was, and I responded, it's this guy, Benny the Bull. like, hey, you're saying that AST SpaceMobile is more risky because it depended on Blue Origin. And my response was like, hey, they're actually— it's launch agnostic. And by the way, they could even use Rocket Lab Neutron. And I'm pretty certain the companies have talked. But if you're going to talk about single launch vehicle risk, then your investment is single launch vehicle risk, which is Neutron, right? Um, which we saw like, I guess it was like 3 weeks ago or 2 weeks ago, um, one of the structures for Neutron like cracked under testing, which is good. You, you want like these things you push to the, the, uh, the, the high— as, as much as possible to their limit, all of these things, uh, in order to understand, oh yeah, this, this, um, this tank that holds propellant or the, the structure. Um, it can take a certain amount of beating, but it's going to survive. And that's what you do. Like, that's with every testing program, right? And so when people came out and were like, oh my God, it's cracked, like, it's gonna get delayed, it's like, no, that's, that's part of the testing. You want to crack this stuff now and you want to reinforce it. And then, uh, because when you launch, you're made in launch, like, you don't want that stuff to go wrong, which I think, like, people, um, outside of space, like, don't understand some of these concepts where I mean, this is a very— when you do stuff in space, it's a very unforgiving environment, whether it's like the pressure and forces that a rocket goes through once you hit max Q and then go out to space. And then if you're trying to return a vehicle, there's a ton of stress there too. So this stuff is all natural, right? And I think in particular for this, the reason why I was saying this before, this particular Twitter person, it's like, you're talking about this risk, but yet the company that you're invested in has penultimate risk. And so yeah, it's a bit rich for you to point out this risk and comparing it to Rocket Lab, which has— AST has launch risk to a degree, meaning it's dependent on third parties, but it's diversified. So that That's good. And then this guy was like poo-pooing Blue Origin, but it's like, you should hold off, right? Because Rocket Lab needs to launch Neutron and there's going to be teething pains, which I hope there isn't. I hope they get up to commercial cadence very quickly and there's no accidents or anything like that. But as we all know, be prepared. It could happen. And there's a decent chance like it will happen and it'll happen over and over again. And you have to iterate to get better. And every setback is a learning opportunity. It's almost like when my son, he's a really good chess player and the only way to learn in chess is to lose. If you were winning all the time, you would, which is an impossibility, but you wouldn't learn anything. Like the only way to learn in chess is to go back at annotations and just brute force Go through over and over all your mistakes, right? And remember those, like, put— file that away in your memory. And, and that's the only way to move forward. And that's, that's very much like space development, um, where you're gonna have to make these mistakes, right? Because what you don't want to do, uh, and for Blue Origin in particular, um, you don't want Blue Origin New Glenn to, uh, be in a situation where there's humans on it and then you have something bad happen. Right? That's what you want to avoid, or if you have a lot of valuable customer cargo. But yeah, I think it's important that this stuff happens. And for those people who are new to space, it might be a shock to you. But if you've been following SpaceX for any number of years, there's different approaches to engineering and SpaceX tends to blow stuff up more. They tend to do it more often. than others, but this is just part of the process. And I think for AST SpaceMobile, um, having Blue Origin New Glenn offline, then yeah, it's going to be a 6-month delay for what their contribution was going to be. So the key thing is like, what is, what is the company doing to backfill that with, with Falcon 9 launches? You know, are they engaging with Mitsubishi Heavy, Arianespace, which Arianespace they definitely might— my money would be that they're, they're booking launches with Arianespace because in order to get the 2 GHz of MSS spectrum allocated in Europe. Um, there's a bit of pay-to-play there, right? Like, you want to support the European space program, and part of that is buying launches for them. And so there's that. And then of course ULA Vulcan. And then, as I had mentioned before, you know, Eric Schmidt of Google is, you know, people relatively— relativity. Um, this is back in 2020, 2021 actually. They were raising money, and I, I I looked at the investment presentation and heard the pitch and decided to pass because I already had investment in all these wonderful SPACs. But yeah, you had a number of marquee investors in that company. And then of course, the first rocket failed to get to orbit, and then they just decided to pivot to the larger heavy-lift rocket, which I think if it can do what they say they can do, it could take anywhere between, I think, 6 to 8 Bluebirds, maybe around there. But Eric Schmidt, he's obviously a very wealthy guy, kind of similar to Jeff Bezos in terms of background. And so we'll see. I've actually been following Relativity, the Terran R project, pretty closely. And so I think that rocket is supposed to launch sometime in 2027. And so yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think it'll be good for obviously the space industry and for the US to have more providers, just given any number of these programs can have a setback and a vehicle comes offline, and then US government, commercial customers, what do you do at that point? But yeah, I think for AST SpaceMobile, one thing that Cook did talk about, which I do agree with, is that the market does have somewhat of a short memory. And so it can only focus on so many things. And so what's in front of the market today The Blue Origin, there was an article where AST said, at least for the near months, Blue Origin was not expected to be a contributing vehicle for launching satellites. And so this delay by 6 months is not good and it's gonna push it even further. So maybe we'll start launching on Blue Origin at the earliest 7, 8 months from now. But what's in front of us, of course, is Falcon 9 is launching in 2 weeks. We'll get a date for that. There will be another launch in July, probably early July. And then you're probably looking at August. I mean, one launch a month, if not more, for the rest of the year. And so that's, once the market kind of gets used to the fact that Blue Origin's off the table and that Falcon 9 is throwing metal up into orbit, then I think the sentiment will be quite different. Obviously the cadence and the number of satellites you send is not gonna be as high, But remember, Blue Origin New Glenn, at least for the probably first 2 flights, they were only going to launch 4 satellites each. And then maybe that would move to 6 on the 3rd flight or maybe the 4th flight. And so it's not that different than— and obviously being on Falcon 9 is, in terms of comfort, it's like, oh yeah, this is like a tried and true vehicle. And so no one's going to really—
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: worry about it. But anyway, but yeah, I think today, as I mentioned before, the space sector is pulling back and it's just kind of part and parcel. I think rates were backing up today and a number of risky sectors were selling off, although it looks like nuclear's doing okay. Solar's down. I'll talk a little bit about T.1 Energy a little later, but all the data center guys are actually trading up today. And so it's kind of a weird day, but, um, can't complain, right? Like, the space sector has rallied tremendously over the last 2 weeks. And so for it to pull back and consolidate and, uh, and also give you some buying opportunities if, uh, if you missed out, then that's not a bad thing. Um, but yeah, so maybe I'll, I'll just pivot, uh, to T.1 Energy real quick. Um, so on T.1, uh, I just— a quick comment. There was someone who, uh, a few people were like, oh my gosh, I think the short sellers are right. when the stock was down to like $9.40, $9.50. And this is something I try to remind people over and over again. If you have an investment in a high beta stock, you should in your watch list have a number of other comparable players. So you should have TOYO, CSIQ, which is Canadian Solar, First Solar, FSLR, SolarEdge, SEDG. You should have a number of these players. Enphase, ENPH. Because Oftentimes people will look at their stock and they'll say, woe is me, what's wrong? I was, you know, something must be happening and, you know, call the devs, right? Do something. And it's like, well, if you just looked at the other sector names, they were all earlier today, they were all down like 6, 7%, right? Um, so it has nothing to do with just T1 Energy. Uh, and so whether that space or any number of sectors, if you're investing in quantum, you need to have all the different quantum names on your watchlist. But if you do that, then it will save you a lot of heartache because then you'll realize like, oh, the stock is down with the rest of the sector. So there's nothing that I should be worried about because it's just part of sector beta. And so I highly recommend people do that if you haven't already done it. So yeah. And I think with T1 Energy, as I mentioned before, we should be hearing back in the next 3 to 4 weeks at most about this new financing package. And someone had asked, well, why would you own the stock here? What if they raise equity? There's a chance they might raise some equity, but from what I understand, this funding package, there's different alternatives they're looking at, but the attractive, the most attractive one would be primarily debt. There might be some equity or equity linked related to that. And then there could be some interesting investors that people perhaps haven't thought about before, um, that could be a positive, right? And so, and under that scenario, when a company— and this is for, you know, any, any company— that if, if a company needs a quantum of capital and there's an overhang, that because people are like, oh my gosh, they need to raise money, and so no one wants to— no one wants to get run over, uh, and they don't buy it. Um, but once it happens, um, then the stock rallies, right? And so in this instance, um, if they're able to raise a quantum of capital that covers their needs for G2 Austin, and it looks strategic and there's not much dilution there, then I'd expect the stock to rally pretty significantly. And so that's kind of what you're playing for at this point. And maybe Leo Aschenberger joins the syndicate, like he's part of the investing group. And so that could be a positive too. But But yeah, I think it's important in these types of situations that there is a catalyst, an event, and we'll find out. And I think just given everything we know about AI data centers and demand and the need for energy and how solar is the most easily deployable, it's cost-effective, and especially with batteries, you're able to smooth out the ability to generate electricity and then store it in off times. For the near and medium term, it's the only real solution to help the US achieve what we want around AI supremacy and sovereignty. So that's my quick two cents there. Let's see, talking about a few other names, Kraken Robotics, which I own. I've traded some here and there, but I own the name. Interestingly, on, was it Friday? The company is now available for trading on Robinhood. And I know a number of people for the last several months were upset because it was not available for trade since it trades OTC. It has an F at the end of its symbol. And part of the thesis around Kraken is that they trade on a junior exchange in Canada. And so the company is taking steps there. So the next big catalyst is they have this deal with Covela, which is a more diversified technology provider, which does not overlap with Kraken, but they do other aspects of unmanned underwater vehicles. They sell different components that are complementary to batteries and sonar, which Kraken sells. And so that deal is going to roughly double the size of the company in terms of revenue and profitability. And so that deal is actually expected to close in the next few weeks here. I think with the closing of that deal, I think the company is looking to uplist to a major exchange in Canada, which would be a big positive, and then eventually uplist here in the US from OTC to either NASDAQ or NYSE. And so with the inclusion to Robinhood, which typically does not allow for trading of warrants or OTC stocks, You're seeing a little bit of a bump today and perhaps over the next few weeks that will continue. But that's part of the thesis where this is like one of the few pure-play ways to play unmanned underwater drones, which, you know, this is just my opinion, but I think the market is more attractive than aerial drones. And aerial drones, I mean, there's a tremendous market there. It's huge, but there's a ton of competitors. whether that's US companies, but also Ukrainians obviously have developed serious know-how there, but any number of countries, private companies are competing there. But when it comes to unmanned underwater drones, there are very few companies. And what's great about Kraken is that they are providing the batteries, basically all the guts, right? The sonar, and with this Covela deal, they'll provide an even bigger part of the bill of materials. they were basically providing everybody, at least in the Western, I guess, allied nations. So yeah, the quick update there that they listed on Robinhood, which is why I think the stock is up today. Maybe there's people at Robinhood who finally learned that they can buy the stock and they're partaking. But let's see. The other thing I wanted to touch briefly on is SPACs. And so I've been paying attention to SPACs and I've traded some stuff here and there. And it's typically what I've focused my time on has been the older stuff, meaning companies that have de-SPACed and then they've been trading for quite some time and perhaps people have forgotten about some of these names. And so it's how I got involved in T1 Energy or Satisfye, which was acquired. Bridger Aerospace is another one. Strata too. SRTA. But it's interesting because there have been a number of SPAC IPOs, new SPACs that have gone public, and then there have been a number of deals that have transacted. And so USAR is a recent one where I was looking at that one and then I didn't, just like I guess normally happens, I didn't pull the trigger when I should have. And That's a critical minerals company, which is now trading at like $30. And part of the reason why that SPAC did well is that the Trump administration, I think, took like an investment. And as we all know, when the Trump administration takes an equity position in a company, you should probably pay attention, whether that's like Intel or MP or any number of other situations. But yeah, so I've started looking at some of the more recent SPACs that have announced deals and then have deals that are about to close. And there's some pretty interesting stuff out there. So I think in the coming weeks, I may try to write up a few of them. I've built small positions in a few of these things, but yeah, there's some cool stuff out there, which I think hit on investment themes that are pertinent to the market. And there's a few names that to my surprise have done extremely well post-DESPAC. And so There's a few others, whether it's in quantum or nuclear or data centers, there's quite a few out there. So keep your eyes open. I'll write about some of this stuff. There's also a few companies that are going public via reverse merger. And so these are deals like back when the digital asset treasury companies were really hot, not only did they do deals to come public via SPAC, but some of them did reverse mergers. Um, but there are a few of these things that, um, are interesting in critical minerals, which, um, I kind of hinted at before. But, um, you know, I'm going to try to write about some of these things as well. So anyway, but yeah, I just wanted to close with that. I've, um, you know, obviously AST is my biggest position and continues to be, and that's not going to change. And, and then I've got a number of some of these other Other names, um, like Insilica is, is one. E-N-S-I-F. Um, that's a pretty interesting engineering company. They're, they're fabulous. They design ASICs, and they're actually, um, they built the— they, they designed the AST5000. But a cool thing about this company is that, and I wrote a little bit about it, is that, um, they get engineering fees for designing the ASIC, and then they actually get a royalty. So for every AST5000 that's produced they collect revenue, they have a revenue stream. And so if there's ultimately 300 Bluebirds that are made with the AST-5000 or 500, they collect an ongoing, or they have this ongoing royalty basically. But what's cool about this company is they actually design ASICs for other companies and other space companies. And so I think they got a pretty big award from the EU in designing this next generation constellation, but they also design ASICs for other industrial applications. So it's not just space, but it's automotive and other markets. And so I think obviously one of the key things which attracted me is that this whole focus around semiconductors enabling data centers, and then ASICs obviously are at the fore of doing that, or having investment in a company that generates profit and can design ASICs, whether it's for space or for data centers, like that seems pretty attractive to me. And so this company is similar to Satisfye, which I had invested in before, and then they were bought by MDA Space. So yeah, there's a lot of these like interesting situations that are out there, which I'll write about in the coming weeks. But anyway, I'm going to pause there, probably done for this space, but let me just see if there's any questions. Let's see, let's take a look here. People have comments. Actually, there aren't many here. I half fell asleep during Cook Spaces last night too. His voice is just so soothing. Question, why is Falcon 9 Heavy not mentioned as much of an option? Uh, that's a good question. I'm not sure, um, but I, I do think that Falcon Heavy And somebody who knows better should, um, should, should chime in here, but I think Falcon Heavy is expensive versus, you know, regular Falcon. Um, and so maybe it's not as the right economic choice. You could put— you throw up a lot, um, on Falcon Heavy, but just not sure like how many you could put into a Falcon Heavy fairing. And so it may not make sense, but I could be wrong there. Let's see. Um, someone said— you got cut off for a second— what, what happens with T1 Energy soon? Uh, T1 Energy, so they're, they're in the middle of putting together a strategic funding package, um, of which a majority that is supposed to be debt, and there, there could be some equity or equity-linked, um, connected to that. But this, this funding that they're raising should basically fill out the rest of their needs for phase 1 of G2 Austin. And so the market's kind of waiting for that. Oh, the other thing I forgot to point out earlier is that with the stock at $10, and it actually hit $11.40, $11.50 last week, but if the stock closes north of $11.50, and this is where you can get into this virtuous cycle where if they put together a great funding package for G2 Austin and the stock rallies, And then people are like, oh my gosh, the warrants are in play. So the company has a number of warrants that if they are exercised at $11.50 before they expire, which is July 8th or July 9th, that will bring in $283 million. And so that could actually fill out a pretty significant amount of the second phase of G2 Austin. And so you might get into this very positive reinforcing thing where they raise a strategic funding package, the stock trades at $12, and then And then people are like, oh my gosh, they're going to automatically raise money from these warrants, and then stock goes higher. That would be ideal. That'd make me happy. But we're supposed to get news in the next or before quarter end, which is June 30th. So we might find out today, we might find out tomorrow, we might find out a week from now, but that's kind of what's in the cards. If cost was not a factor, shouldn't AST SpaceMobile pivot to space X's Falcon Heavy versus Falcon 9 to get as many BBs up in one launch as possible. Um, that— yeah, it's that they could be contemplating that. I mean, I, I think all— we're all speculating, right? But no one really knows. They could— we could find out tomorrow or on the confirmation of the targeted launch date for BB-8, 9, and 10 that they've decided to, um, start launching on Falcon Heavy. But keep in mind that, let's say if you can launch, and I gotta go through and analyze it, but if you could launch, I don't know, 5, 6, 7 satellites on Falcon Heavy, you're gonna need a little bit of time to figure out the fun problem of stacking, right? Which is, if you're gonna stack up to 6, then, and this is what they were gonna do anyway with Blue Origin New Glenn, you're gonna have to make sure that the bottom 3 are pretty strong to support the top 3. So, um, so that's going to take some time. Let's see, what's stopping SpaceX refusing future launch after our contracted slots are used up? SpaceX is a capitalistic company and they are under the purview of the U.S. government. And so if SpaceX, um, if they decide to, you know, undertake anti-competitive behavior, they would have to answer to the Department of Justice, the FCC, but just as importantly, the Department of War and the US government. And so especially with the fact that we're in the space race with China and direct-to-device is a critical market, I think SpaceX probably, the market is big enough, they probably aren't going to mess around with AST or any number of competitors who, by the way, they launch Amazon LEO satellites, they launch Globalstar satellites, Iridium, they launch everybody. And so as long as you have what's in your pocket, the currency, which is green, it's called the US dollar, as long as you show up with that and obviously put together a satellite that's not gonna fall apart during launch and risk their vehicles, as long as you're a willing and able customer, you can buy launches. And that's part of, the minute that the, the minute that SpaceX does something anti-competitive, that kind of queers their entire business, uh, because their business is built on launching theirs and competitors' cargo, right? And so, for example, StarCloud, who you guys have probably seen the CEO, he's pretty active on, on Twitter, that, that data center company in space is solely dependent on Starship, which is why the CEO is like super friendly to Musk. But, but he also, in the back of his mind, knows that SpaceX not only will launch his data centers to space, SpaceX will be launching their own. So that's just part of the dynamics of the industry. Let me see if there's any more questions here. Okay. Did you ever do any DD for GILT or know much about it? Just curious. So GILT is Gilat Satellite.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: Networks.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Uh, it's an Israeli company. I did a little bit of work on it. Um, they make like— they make satellite terminals, uh, the ones that fit on top of your, you know, a commercial airliner. And these have phased array antennas and they're able to communicate with satellites. Um, I, I did a little bit of work on it, but it seemed— I don't know, it seemed kind of a niche company. Um, I know they're trying to expand some of these other areas. They also bought a company which brought in some revenue, but I think that company— and yeah, I'm not speaking on authority, by the way. It's just very cursory type of research. But from what I saw, I think the company that it acquired was under competitive duress. And so it was unclear what they bought, how long that would last. But yeah, it's probably worth exploring further. But it seemed like they were primarily focused on fixed terminals, uh, for planes. And then it was what, what really got me is like it was unclear if they were doing this for Starlink or if they could supply Starlink or if they were tied to, you know, our friends at Viasat. And if so, or SES, and if so, um, that's probably not something I want exposure to. So, so those are my quick thoughts. But anyway, um, I've been rambling on here, but, uh, but yeah, thanks everyone for joining. Uh, going back Just briefly to AST SpaceMobile, we'll hear probably from the company on a targeted launch date. And yes, I mean, you might get an update on how many satellites they expect to have, uh, by year end. That's probably going to be a smaller number, which in the grand scheme of things is not— to me is not a big deal. Um, the key thing is, is they've got a lot of money and they can buy launches. And, you know, let's get those satellites up. Um, anyway, thanks everyone for joining, and maybe I'll do another space Later today or tomorrow, we'll see. Take care.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time. Listen.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Mmm, waffles.