AST SpaceMobile - How the SpaceX IPO Valuation Impacts the Space Sector

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Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large. Hey everyone, I wanted to fire a quick space up and talk about this William Blair note. There's been a number of people asking about it and also making some comments as well, and so I just wanted to clarify a few things. So for those that don't know, Scott Wisniewski was at this William Blair conference. You have to be a William Blair client, and so that means either a high net worth individual or an institution that's paying William Blair, you know, commissions to attend this conference. And so it is a smaller forum. Sometimes there will be webcasts of these things, but it really depends on the investment bank. Whether or not they will webcast it or they just keep it private to their clients. So, um, Scott was at this conference and then was asked very directly what, um, the Blue Origin launch, you know, failure, uh, the failure of New Glenn, what that would do to— in terms of timing impact for the commercial service launch. And so he reiterated that there will be a handful of launches over the remainder of the year, and then And that's aside from Blue Origin. And then he said that he estimated, and this is just me quoting this report, but that there could be a 3 to 6 month delay for commercial service, which makes sense. And it's something that I think all of us have come to terms with, which if you have one of your primary vehicles out of commission for the next 6 months, possibly 7, 8 months, then your commercial service launch is going to be delayed. But, you know, here he talks about how commercial service will likely be activated in the first half of 2027, and beta is expected to start at the end of this year. Beta, for those that don't know, you know, that would probably need anywhere between 20 to 25 satellites, right? And so the other thing that was mentioned in this note is that AST did receive approval from Brazil for 10 by 10 megahertz spectrum usage. And so that's a big piece of news, which I didn't published, but that's pretty big because we have an allocation of dedicated spectrum and now we're going to be able to utilize that in Brazil. But going back to this note, there were a number of people on Twitter that were lamenting the fact that the company didn't update guidance and they're disclosing this selectively at a conference. I think it's important to take a step back and understand how the street works. Okay? So oftentimes companies will get asked questions at these investor conferences. And part of Reg FD is that there is this like aspect of Reg FD. Reg FD is this regulation where, you know, all information should be disseminated to the market and people shouldn't get selective disclosures, but there's wrinkles to that, right? So if a company is at an investment bank conference and discloses something that could be material, and then, you know, some participants hear it and then, but then the research analyst publishes it, you know, that evening or a day later, that's deemed to be okay. And that's just how Wall Street works, right? And so oftentimes retail investors will say, well, that's not fair. Yeah, it isn't fair. And that's how the system works. Like, I'll give you one example. In these IPOs, you as a retail investor will have no idea what the company's projections are. Now, obviously we get an S-1 and we see what the historical financial results are for a company, but we don't get projections of what the street thinks the company will do. And by the way, like before a company goes public, they have an analyst, they meet with an analyst and they give them projections, internal projections of what they think they're going to do for the next few quarters and years. And then it's up to the analyst to figure out, they build out their models and they haircut the projections. They try to sandbag it because you want the company to keep beating results out of the gate because it's a big taboo if you don't do that after an IPO. If you miss the first quarter out or second quarter out, that's just, there's an unwritten rule that you have to and raise at least for 3 to 4 quarters, which is why companies that go public through the regular process, like, they have to be mature enough in order to do that, which is why you don't see super early-stage companies go public via normal way IPO. They might go IPO via SPAC. But as part of that process, research analysts have these estimates and then their sales force. So like, if I'm a client of Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley and I work at Fidelity, you get to see SpaceX on the roadshow and then SpaceX can't tell you where their projections are, but what they, what the bank can do is Goldman will call you and say, well, this is what we have estimated for revenues, for EBITDA, for whatever it is, right? They give you the analyst projections ahead of time, right? And then it's not until 30 days after the IPO, so sometimes they do it earlier, but then when the analyst initiates coverage and publishes, then the rest of the street and the public, Joe Public, learn what the estimates are, right? And so for people who trade an IPO early, um, the, you know, you and me, normal retail guys, we have no idea what the projections are. And so we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants versus the institutions who are actually on the roadshow, or they have sales reps who, um, the sales rep will give them the estimates that the Street, you know, that their analyst is, is going to initiate coverage with. And so there is this like bifurcation of the haves and have-nots, right? And that's just part of the, that part of the, you know, the way that Wall Street works. And so here you had Scott, and I want people to understand, like Scott was asked a question on the spot and he answered it. He answered it in a way that was like, well, it could be 3 to 6 month delay, right? For commercial service, which is true and it's not surprising. But then also You know, there's been people pushing for, oh, we need an 8K, we need an update. Well, the company will update the market when it's ready. I don't think Scott's ready. You know, he's probably still making moves in terms of launching additional capacity or assigning additional launch capacity and maybe signing an MLA here or there. And so we might get an update, for example, when they provide the target launch date for BB-8, 9, and 10, or we might actually get an update later, right? So the company, may not be ready, but in these forums, um, they have to answer questions, right? And so he gave a view of that things could be delayed by 3 to 6 months. That said, um, you know, I think it's important as retail investors that, um, that everybody here understands like the market is not fair, right? Like institutions have an edge for a reason. They have a tremendous amount of assets, they have commission dollars, They get access to information, one-on-one meetings. You know, oftentimes the company will pick up the phone and talk to them. Like, if your number 3 shareholder is calling you and has questions, you're going to take that meeting, right? But if it's like Joe Schmo or me or anybody who calls a company and it's like, oh, I want some information, I'd like to have a conversation, it's not a good use of time for the company to speak with retail investors, right? Because it's tough if you have an account that's like, I don't know, you have $300,000 worth of AST versus Fidelity, if they had like $300 million, um, it might be a better use of your time to engage with that person, right? Um, especially if they've got like millions more to potentially invest. But that's, that's kind of the nature of the beast. And I, I know like there's been some criticism of, you know, when I email IR, they don't respond back to me. Well, um, in this day and age, and I think the company learned this the hard way for For those people that don't know, the company did used to respond to retail email questions, but then somebody abused that several years ago. They actually took took a screenshot of the conversation and then published it and said, "Well, the company said this," and then by the way, this is like a few months later when obviously what was said back then had to be changed because circumstances changed. And so this person like tweeted the conversation and said. Well, this executive lied because they said this one thing and then months later, now it's something different. And it's like, well, circumstances change. That happens in business. And so you can't call someone a liar if at that time this was their best understanding of what they were going to do. And then a few months later, they've had to change. Right. And so you have to take, you have to understand that for a company to respond with written responses to any retail questions, like there's no upside in doing that. Like if you're going to, If you have questions for the company, pick up your phone and call IR. Now, you know, if they give you a callback, great. If not, then, then, you know, there's, there's a bit of a pecking order of, is this person, um, is this a good use of my time to talk to? Imagine like, um, 10 of the top institutions that own your stock, probably good use of time to go call them back and speak for 20, 30 minutes versus like, um, thousands of retail who are contacting and saying, I want, I demand answers. I want you to call me. And so yeah, that's just the reality, right? And I know some people were perturbed, like that somehow they believe that William Blair got this information first and then all these institutions were, you know, had the ability to act first. And by the way, like this growth conference happened yesterday, right? And so these comments were made and there were institutions in attendance and the stock price continued to go up. So it's not as if this was a negative. If anything, and I personally believe this, the market has adjusted. Like, yes, there's going to be a delay, right? And they've got to solve the Rubik's Cube of launch. And I've talked about this in previous Spaces, like they have a baseline of Falcon 9 launches and some ULA Centaur launches, and they're going to add more. And it'll be great when Blue Origin New Glenn comes back, but that's going to take some time. But I think there is this, for Space Mob, there is this sense of entitlement to a degree that because there's so much great due diligence that the community is doing, and there's also institutional investors who actually are amongst Space Mob, you may just not know it, but they share information very generously. And so yeah, for this particular investment in AST SpaceMobile, folks have a very high degree of information access and symmetry versus institutions. That said, like the old apparatus that we call Wall Street, like that still exists, right? And so there will be times like this where information is disseminated and then it comes out a day later in a research report. And by the way, like the fact that we have this research report is amazing. Because if you were invested in some other stock and there's not this community and people that care to help retail, like you would never see this thing, right? Like it's actually, it's like, oh, we have access to it. And then people are like, oh, they're claiming that it's unfair that perhaps somebody knew a day ahead of time, which it's like, well, yeah, they knew it yesterday and the stock was up a lot. So I guess what's your point? But Anyway, but I think it's important, like, yes, I believe in fairness and equal playing level playing field, but that's not how Wall Street works. That's, it's, there's like these old constructs and of course as an investment bank, I mean, imagine like their business is to provide service to their clients, provide value add. They host meetings, give you access to management and they get paid for it, right? And so it's in their interest to Just like some of these paid research report services or whatever. It's like, if I'm trying to make money, I'm not going to just put all my research out there for everybody to see. Like, there needs to be a business model. It's like you need to have unique access and to pay for that. And so that's what this is, right? But I'll just emphasize again that, you know, the company, you know, Scott responded to a direct question, which you can't, you know, you can't waffle around. And I think Here gave a reasonable response. But then also, I think the company is not at a point where they can codify exactly what's going to happen over the next 6 months because they obviously have their launches in place. They're making moves, right? And so for those people who are demanding an 8-K, it's like, well, what if the plan is still kind of up in the air? Like, what if they're trying to add some additional launch? Like, would you rather have an 8-K that says specifically, this is exactly what happened and, and, um, call it a day. Or it's like, here's, here's our plan. Uh, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna update people. I'm, I'm— my guess is like they'll say, you know, our plan for 45, which was a stretch goal, like that's gonna— my guess, this is just me, my guess is that they'll say that that is going to drift into the first half of next year, um, or first quarter, whatever it is, right? But, um, but they're not ready to make those proclamations yet because there's things that they're doing. I mean, this, this accident just happened, um, you know, a few days ago. So, um, but yeah, I think, I think it's important, um, that people recognize that this, this particular stock, like, the amount of information that retail gets, um, in many respects is actually much more than institutions. And so it's important to Yeah, that I guess we don't take it for granted and that there is, there are going to be, uh, people are so used to that fact and it's like, oh well, William Blair, there's this report and, you know, why didn't we get, find this out sooner? And it's like, well, we're lucky to have got the report because there's one particular Space Mob member who has shared it and then it's been widely distributed across the internet. Um, but this stuff is not normal. Um, institutional access and having people in the flows of understanding what hedge funds are thinking about the stock and having access to sell-side research. This is not normal either, right? And so yeah, it's in an ideal world, in utopia, everyone gets the exact same information at the exact same time, but that's just not how investing works. And that's where, by the way, like that's investing edge, right? Which is, I mean, just to give you an example, like if you're talking to a company, like a management team, and they're all, I mean, most management teams, that is, they're all very aware of Reg FD and not disseminating material non-public information, right? And so that's where, as an investor, part of your, the most important part of your toolkit is to ask the right questions and also to understand what's being answered and what's not being answered. And so And Kukas referred to this, which is like BIA analysis. BIA is something that hedge fund, a lot of analysts go through this training. It's like CIA operatives are taught this training, but it's like reading body language and clues and what's being said and how it's being said and what's not being said. But this is all part of the job, right? And so oftentimes when you do have a one-on-one with management, because institutions will say, I don't want to be in a group meeting, I want a one-on-one. meeting with management and you sit there and you ask them questions and you obviously, you can ask till the cows come home, like questions that will, that are material non-public information. Like I want that answer and management will not answer that, right? But then the way that you ask it or you ask around it or you ask some things related to it, that could give you a clue to the answer or it could lead you down the wrong way and you may believe you know the answer and it may be absolutely wrong. But anyway, I guess my point is that this, you know, folks who are wondering why hasn't the company updated the market and 8-K'd this or whatever, it's because they're not ready and they are still working on this is my guess. And being at a conference, if you're asked on the spot in front of a ton of institutional investors, you know, he's acknowledging here there could be an estimated 3 to 6 month delay for commercial service. Right? And so if that's news to you or surprise, then, you know, that, I don't know what to say. Like, I think after the Spaces I've done, you know, the fact that Blue Origin was going to be a very, or, and continues to be an important launch provider, that hasn't changed. And so replacing that capacity is going to be a tough thing, but then at the same time, like, there is stuff out there. and they got to work on it, right? And going back to a much higher macro level, as I've said before, like if this service gets delayed by 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, whatever it is, like it's not going to really matter. I mean, I just saw this note out from Oppenheimer today downgrading AT&T of all things, which is kind of nuts, but they're claiming this analyst, I don't fully agree with them, but this is what's on Wall Street. This is like what's on institutional investors' mind. They're saying that AT&T, because it has the most fiber exposure, which is broadband to your home, fiber and 5G broadband to your home, that he's downgrading stock because Starlink fixed wireless is becoming a bigger and bigger competitive threat. And then in that note, he also said how mobile Starlink mobile is going to become a bigger threat. And so because AT&T has the most fiber exposure, he's downgrading it, but then he's saying if want to not have as much exposure, uh, you know, risk, then own Verizon and T-Mobile. But the funny thing is, is like all of them are exposed, right? Um, for the fixed wireless business. And then beyond that, um, the mobile business. This is why T-Mobile is shifting over to AST SpaceMobile. But, um, but yeah, this stuff is all top of mind. And this kind of shows that report in particular shows like why none of those 3 carriers are going to work with Starlink. Going forward, right? And how AST is their bet. And as long as they are working with AST, like, yes, it's going to take some time. And as we all have learned, like, you, in order to do this stuff right, you have to be deliberate and you have to, you know, and unfortunately for Blue Origin, they had a mishap on the pad. And that's going to take time to resolve, but they're going to learn from it. They're probably going to build additional pads to make sure that they don't have this issue going forward. But yeah, that's, that's, that's the game. It's space and, and there's risk. But anyway, but that's pretty much all I had to say. You know, I think, let me just see if there's any questions. Let me just look here. Any questions or comments? Okay. Agree. Hold the cards for a bit. Take advantage of the SpaceX IPO, then announce. Heck, if they get a good run-up, use the offering if needed. Yeah, I mean, I think they will update the market when they know they have a better sense of what their plans are over the next few months. But if I was management and if I had to guess, they're going to sign an MLA with Relativity. You know, they'll sign an MLA with, you know, MHI and And Arianespace, and then they'll go from there, right? And then you've got a steady launch cadence with SpaceX Falcon 9, which we're going to have in 2 weeks. I think the day may have got pushed back to June 16th based off of some estimates because I think the Starlink launch today got delayed. But then you're going to layer on all these options, right, for launch. And as I've discussed before, with all those options, As the manifests free up due to various circumstances, then you'll be able to launch additional cargo. Or if you sign with Relativity and that launch actually goes well, then you might be launching with them. And Scott has talked about this, like 2027 is going to be a year where there's a lot more capacity that comes online. And I was listening to NSF, the YouTube today where they were covering, or it was yesterday, they were covering the Blue Origin launch pad and, and the repairs and what it means. And one of the points that they made, which I think some people have pointed out as well, is that by the time that pad, that pad and/or SLC-39B are up, or 36B are up, um, there's going to be a huge inventory of, you know, of New Glenn boosters and second stages. And so, um, of course, like, as long as they don't have a mishap, they'll be able to start launching In a pretty rapid cadence. And so that'll be interesting to see. But in regards to SpaceX IPO, for those that don't know, that roadshow's kicking off on Thursday. They talked about setting the price range, which is, by the way, like for IPOs, that's typical. Like you're going to, before you start launch the roadshow, you give people the price range, which is the valuation, right? So you might, and there's like a whole game to this, right? So let's say, I'm just making it up, but let's say the valuation range is $1.5 to $1.75 trillion. And then you kick off the roadshow. And during that roadshow, if you're a capital markets guy at one of these banks, you're like, oh, based off demand, we're raising the range to $1.75 to $2 trillion, right? And then you actually might do that a few times during the roadshow because you're trying to create this psychology that there's real demand and you can't, you obviously can't fake it fully because then orders don't show up at the end. It's not oversubscribed. And then you actually have to price down, which would, which is like the worst thing you can do. But as you go through this roadshow, when it prices on Thursday next week, you will then say, okay, we have now set the range at $2 trillion to $2.1 trillion. And then when they actually price the IPO that evening, they'll price it at $2.2 trillion because they're like, based off of all the demand and oversubscription, we're pricing it here. And that's how you build momentum, right? And you're hoping that that first trade, it happens at $2.5 trillion and then it trades up from there. I mean, that's ideally what happens. I mean, we'll see. But, um, but yeah, if, if there is that, that, uh, dynamic, then you could see the rest of the space sector kind of trade in sympathy that there's all this demand. Um, let's see, uh, here's another comment. Everyone came to terms with it except last week when everyone was pointing to SEC filing talking about prepayments for 10 launches and saying BO launches would be replaced. So those prepayments for launches, um, that Could be, and that's speculation from Space Mob. It's not from the company. But yeah, there could be prepayments for 10 launches. That doesn't mean all 10 are happening in the next 6 months, right? You could have prepayments for 5 this, this, you know, through the end of this year, and then you have prepayments for several more in the first and second quarter of next year. It doesn't mean that it all happens in the next 6 months, right? And then also, You know, the potential dynamic, and this is again, this is why the company cannot AK this. The potential dynamic may be like, hey, SpaceX, so remember those other 5 launches that we have scheduled? I'd like to pull them forward. And then SpaceX is like, well, that's going to cost you an additional $5 million a launch or $10 million. And the company's going to think about that and be like, well, you know, does that make sense economically in terms of, you know, our business and blah, blah, blah. And then they might decide to do it. And then they pull the trigger and they pull it forward. And so that's another potential outcome. So, but yes, I think it's important that in the grand scheme of things, depending on how the company navigates this, is a delay inevitable? Yes, it's most likely inevitable. Is that delay going to be 2, 3 months for commercial service, or it's going to be 4 or 5, 6 months? Unclear. We'll see. We'll see what they say. Let's see. See if there's any other questions. You said relativity, but were you thinking of ULA for the MLA? No, I was thinking relativity because ULA, we already have an agreement with them, right? So the company has been a bit coy in terms of they abel kind of During the last quarter, he kind of blurted it out. And so the cat was out of the bag. And this goes to some of Cook's potential speculation that perhaps ULA is being added for military missions to a degree, but who knows, right? But when I say additional MLAs, I'm talking about with providers that we don't have MLAs, which are multi-launch agreements. So we don't have one with Arianespace. We don't have one with Relativity. We don't have one with MHI. Uh, we don't have one with Rocket Lab for that matter. Um, but then we do have them with ISRO. We do have it with SpaceX and we do have it with Blue Origin. So let me see. How do I think the space sector and even AST will react before and after the IPO of SpaceX? That's a good question. So obviously the reaction has been very positive, right? I mean, the entire space sector has rallied into the SpaceX IPO. So that was something that people have foreseen and was kind of an obvious trade. The question is like, how will the sector trade post-IPO? They'll probably be, my guess is like after the SpaceX IPO, there'll be somewhat of a run-up into it and then there'll be kind of a cooling off. where things will consolidate a bit. But the question is like, where would we pull back from? You know, are stocks going to run another 10, 15, 20% and then pull back, or are they going to, you know, go up just a few percent? I think it's important to note that some of these companies like, let's see, like Citus and Savologic and Momentus, some of these smaller companies, and then Intuitive Machines today just announced that they're putting an ATM in place. But some of these other companies have raised capital on the back of their stock's going up a pretty significant amount. I mean, Virgin Galactic on that crazy run, they announced that they were retiring some debt and they were issuing stock. And so that's why the thing cratered yesterday. But from what I understand, like, you know, that's for this sector and for the companies who have already raised money, which includes AST, you know, I think you'll probably see some continued outperformance and then maybe some type of Pull back and then things will settle down. But this whole idea of like people selling current space holdings to go buy SpaceX, I mean, probably you should ask yourself that question. Are you doing that? Like if you're doing it, then it's probably reasonable to assume that everybody else is doing it. For me, I'm not doing it and I'm probably the exception. I don't really have an interest in owning SpaceX just given the valuation, but not really the valuation. It's more like SpaceX, when you buy it, you own, you end up owning X and XAI. And I think I think Grok's like kind of interesting, but when I use Gemini and ChatGPT, and unfortunately I haven't really used Claude, but I just don't see it as a comparable product. So I'm not sure I want exposure to that. And I love using X, but then I also, as an avid user of X, I know all the warts that X has, which, for example, search function doesn't work anymore. It used to work really great back in the day. And then we've got all these bots and other things that make the platform really difficult to use. And because I'm like such a seasoned user, I know how to get the most out of it. For any new people, I can imagine it's probably tough to find utility out of it. It's probably overwhelming. But yeah, I think post-IPO, I would expect there to be like some type of pullback and then who knows from that point. Because I mean, beyond just the SpaceX IPO, there's other things at play here. For example, Are we going to have an extension with Iran for 2 months to negotiate the removal of uranium? And there's like, you know, Trump unleashed another round of tariffs to replace what was struck down by the Supreme Court this morning, which is why, you know, stocks have been weak. And so there's a lot of other things to consider. But for me, I think, yeah, I'm long-term bullish. I'm not trading around space or AST that aggressively. Um, like I'm a long-term holder, so for me, um, I'm kind of indifferent. Let's see. Is AST or is SATS, EchoStar, a beneficiary of the IPO? Um, I'll answer this question. Uh, yeah, EchoStar is a beneficiary of the IPO depending if the IPO goes well. If it goes poorly, then EchoStar is going to go down too. Um, for those that don't know, EchoStar is a— some of the parts play, um, Charlie Ergen, you know, sold his spectrum to SpaceX and they issued stock to him in return. And then, you know, you have this like pay TV business, which is Dish and a few other assets, which ultimately they'll monetize. The only thing I don't like about, and there's people who are big fans of EchoStar, the only thing I don't like about it is this guy, there is another Hamid out there. I think his name is Hamid. Hamid and Charlie Ergen, they basically want to turn the company after monetizing the SpaceX stake, they're going to turn it into an investing company. And so you have to be fully confident in their investing acumen of what they're going to go pursue. And so some of the parts stories trade for a discount for a reason, right? Like there's taxes that have to be paid, there's illiquidity. There's also potential discounting because of, you know, what is management going to do with the funds? Like if they monetize the rest of the Spectrum holdings and they enter into a merger with DirecTV, which, you know, the Dish the DISH side of the business, you could extract a lot of synergies by cutting marketing and spend and, you know, removing duplicative cost for a declining business, then there's real value there. But you have to have confidence that Charlie Ergen is not going to do some wildcatting crazy stuff like he did back in, you know, 2010 and try to build like a 5th wireless provider, right? And so that's why the trade, it's interesting, but it's imperfect. Let's see. Will they likely dilute in the coming months to pay for additional SpaceX launches? Well, the company has over $3 billion in cash, so there's no need to dilute in the near term. If the stock goes to $200 or $150, will they raise money? Probably. As any astute management team and board, if you get to another level of valuation and The dilution goes from, you know, the last billion-dollar convert they raised, I think it was like less than 3% dilution. So if you can raise a billion dollars for 1% dilution, you probably should do that, right? And I think looking back on the last convert that they did, obviously there's people, you know, that are hardwired dilution is bad, but I'm looking back now, given everything that's transpired, I'm very happy that they raised that money. And they're like, okay, we need to pay for more SpaceX launches. And so here it is, we raised the money. We did the convert at, was it like $96? And then with the conversion premium of $120 or something like that. And so that was a good move. Let's see, any estimates on when the launch date will get announced? Soon. I think the launch date, so it's probably originally, I think on some, Information, you know, some due diligence was suggesting June 15th was going to be the launch date, but it looks like that might get pushed back by one day because of SpaceX. The Starlink mission today, I think, got pushed back due to weather. And so we're probably looking at June 16th. And the last time we launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9, that was in— that was the Block 1 satellites, and they announced that target date 8 days prior. So I would assume 8 days prior. So that's probably June 7th. So June 7th, June 8th. So that's this week, right? Actually, let me look at the calendar. Uh, or it could be Monday of next week. Um, probably Monday next week. I, I guess I put my bet on that. That said, I mean, that's SpaceX. Um, they might announce it sooner. I mean, I remember, uh, ISRO LVM-3 launch of Bluebird 6. That was launched— or sorry, that was announced, I think it was like 2, maybe it was 3 or 4 weeks in advance. It was pretty far in advance. But of course, like There were some delays in terms of getting that, getting the satellite integrated, and so that there maybe it really was more like a two-week announcement. Let's see here. What about NSSL possibility? That is a possibility. So I know the company is working on some big things in defense, and and this is part of like. The, you know, having the patience because on the one hand, yes, we had the Blue Origin New Glenn delay. That sucks. We have SpaceX launches coming up. That's good. Handful of them and potentially a ULA launch thrown in there, which would be, you know, call it 5 satellites. And then like there's this other stuff that's cooking in the background, which, you know, if we win something big on the defense side, and then That's parlayed into, okay, it's very important for the nation. And so you have become an NSSL mission and you get to go to the front of the line for Falcon 9 and ULA launches, then that's really positive, right? And so that's in the realm of possibility. And I don't know, going back to what I was saying before, and this is just pure speculation, but the company may not be updating people on guidance because maybe some of this stuff is getting close and it could happen or may not happen. Right? But there's a reason, um, and I will say that AST has very conservative lawyers, uh, in terms of communicating this type of stuff. And so there's a reason why they're holding off, right? They're not giving an update, which, um, you know, you could come in this afternoon or tomorrow and they give an update and, and that's that. Or, uh, we're gonna find out in a few days' time or a week's time that, um, you know, some of these These contracts have come in, and and perhaps the launch dynamics have changed. Let's see, Mr. Gadget, three to six month delay sounds positive considering the max fear from the Blue Blue Origin mishap. The original reaction seemed way overblown. Yeah, that's true. That's very true. Like you had all these launch pundits and journalists, you know, in quotes, say that the pad wasn't going to be rebuilt for another eighteen months. where some, some people were saying 2 years. And then, uh, and then Blue Origin wasn't even gonna go back to the 7x2 program, the, the current Blue Origin New Glenn. They were going to go to the Super Heavy New Glenn of 9x4. They were just going to abandon the project. And so, um, all these proclamations ended up being wrong. And so I think, um, the truth always, of course, is probably somewhere in the middle. Um, if Blue Origin is saying they're going to launch by before the end of the year, my guess is that probably means like January. February, because as we know, space things take time. But you're going to have a very visible way to track their progress, which is SLC-36A. We already have equipment down there, cranes that are clearing up debris. And so you're going to have a very tangible and visible view of construction there. And so we'll have a good sense of whether or not they'll be able to get to the launch pad in time before the year end. And right now the bottleneck is the launch pad itself, right? So if you can, if there is a way to throw more money at a problem and it could accelerate, you know, perhaps there's, there's ways to mitigate long pole, you know, items in the tent. Um, it's not launch, right? Because by the time the end of the year comes, there will probably be, let's see, 3 boosters that are completed. Um, because MG4, GS1-4, GS1- 5. This is Glenn Stage 1 and Glenn Stage 2, or sorry, Glenn Stage 1, number 4, and number 5. And those will probably be done by the end of the year. So they'll have 3 boosters ready. And then upper stages, they'll probably by the end of the year, if they were working on number 15, then they'll probably have, they'll probably be at 20, low or low 20s for the numbers, which means if you take out the first 4, that gets you to call it Yeah, probably high teens type of second stages. And so the key thing is like finishing that pad. And then once it's done, you're going to be able to start launching early and often, right? Very rapid cadence, as long as like nothing else happens that's wrong. So I think that's where Scott's optimism around Q1, and this is the balance, right? This is the tough part where it's like, okay, well, if you're going to pull forward SpaceX launches, how many do you do? Do you pull forward, like, you know, do you buy down 15 launches? You know, you pay up 15 launches apiece. That's like $60, $70 million. Or do you wait for Blue Origin? You see how things progress and then you wait maybe a month or two from now, see what the progress has been on the build-out of the launch pad. And then you're able to extrapolate, are they going to be able to hit the end of the year? Because if they are, then I'm not going to buy as many SpaceX launches because they're going to have so many Blue Origin rockets ready to go. Like, let's see if they can pull it off, right? And so that's part of the calculus here where it's, there is some economic reason and strategic reason to wait to a degree. But also, you know, if I was talking to the company today, I would be telling them, yeah, just book a bunch of SpaceX launches, pay for it. Because I think, you know, market wants, the market will reward you for some level of certainty. And then they reward you for optionality. And so if you see an MLA with Relativity and Arianespace and MHI, and you layer all those options on top of Blue Origin, then the market— and then of course it's anchored by these SpaceX launches— then the market's going to be, in my opinion, I would be ecstatic to see all that. So, but yeah, let's see. Someone is asking, Do you think AST will issue another ATM given the delay? I think it'd be smart for AST to put in place another ATM that you can tap from time to time. Is that something that they're going to do? Unclear. I'm not sure because like they have enough money. They've got well over $3 billion. And of course, like you never want to raise money when you're at a point where everyone expects you to raise it. Like you don't want people to see the whites of your eyes. And so Do they put an ATM near term? My guess is probably not. But then as we get closer to the 4th quarter, as long as like these launches go off without a hitch and like, you know, people are feeling pretty positive, and if the stock was like at $150 or $200, then maybe they'll put an ATM in place and just have it there as a backup to raise capital from time to time. But I think it's important to note that Every time the company has raised capital, it was at a good time and it was for a good reason, right? And so the fact that they did the last billion-dollar convert and you had these things which inevitably do happen, some setbacks, I feel really good that they raised that money. Let's see. I think maybe that might be it. Oh, do you expect the next batch to go out on time? Manufacturing delays mostly, I think, in the past. Well, it depends on what is on time. I do think the next batch of Bluebirds will go out on time, meaning on time for a July Falcon 9 launch. I don't know exactly when that Falcon 9 launch will be. Like, is it going to happen in the first half of July or second half of July? But if that's going to be the case, then that second batch of Bluebirds needs to go out probably in the next 2 to 3 weeks at a minimum in order to make July. I mean, it could actually, it could go and go out by the end of June in order to make that, um, to make it end of July launch. But, uh, I think back-solving the, the integration of our satellites with Falcon 9, it seems like that process is around 3 weeks. And so, so yeah, I would expect to see that next batch. We should start getting a sense that that batch is coming soon and that final assembly and testing is happening and those are almost ready to go. Let's see. I think that's probably all the questions. So anyway, I just wanted to get people together and talk about this. Yeah. So we'll see what the company has in store. They're working the phones. And, you know, after the Blue Origin New Glenn delay, I'm sure everybody and their brother on the launch side has been calling them, offering them, you know, the moon and the sun in order to sign as a customer. So, so we'll see what comes of it. But, um, anyway, uh, that's it. I've gotta actually hop for another call, but thanks everyone for joining, and we'll talk again soon. Take care. Thanks for listening to the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest news about AST SpaceMobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time. Listen. Mmm, waffles.