Background
About AST SpaceMobile
A reading of public company pages and one FCC order. Claims stay attached to the document that made them. This site is not affiliated with AST SpaceMobile.
FCC filings and the dated milestones are on Regulatory.
The company
AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTS) is based in Midland, Texas. Abel Avellan is chairman and chief executive. The company describes itself as building a cellular broadband network in space that ordinary, unmodified phones can use, for both commercial and government work.
The operating idea is direct-to-cell: the satellite talks to a normal handset on spectrum the partner mobile network already uses, and the operator's core stays on the ground. AST says it has more than 60 mobile-operator relationships covering more than 3 billion subscribers. That is a company total, not a list this page can verify country by country.
The hardware
BlueWalker 3 is the prototype. AST said the array unfolded on 14 November 2022 at 693 square feet. Gunter's Space Page describes it as a roughly 1.5 tonne satellite with a 10 metre phased array of about 64 square metres. It is still in the public catalog this tracker uses.
Block 1 is BlueBird 1 through 5, launched together on 12 September 2024 from Cape Canaveral. AST's next-generation page puts those first-generation BlueBird arrays at the same 693 square feet as BlueWalker 3.
Block 2 is the larger bus. AST says the phased array is about 2,400 square feet, that each satellite is designed for 10 GHz of processing bandwidth, peak speeds over 150 Mbps per coverage cell, and more than 2,000 active cells. Those are design figures from the company, not measurements from this tracker. BlueBird 6 (December 2025, Satish Dhawan) was the first of that generation to reach orbit. BlueBirds 8–13 followed from the Cape in June and August 2026.
Named partners
AST's FAQ lists nine strategic partners: AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, Google, American Tower, Bell Canada, stc group, and Telus. The October 2026 readiness note repeats AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten Mobile, Bell Canada, TELUS, and stc Group as the relationships that 'provide a direct path to market.' Google and American Tower are on the FAQ list; this review did not find a service-territory announcement for them.
Dated commercial agreements AST has described: AT&T, definitive, 29 May 2024, U.S. service through 2030; Verizon, a partnership the same day and a definitive agreement on 8 October 2025 for service beginning in 2026; Vodafone, definitive, 9 December 2024, Europe and Africa through 2034. With Vodafone, AST has also described SatCo, a joint venture for European operators, with a satellite operations centre planned in Germany and a commercial launch planned from 2026. The FCC's April 2026 order adds FirstNet spectrum in the U.S. public-safety band.
In Brazil, the Anatel document opened here is Ato nº 7955 of 15 June 2026, an NGSO exploration right for SpaceMobile in S and Q/V. It does not state a megahertz total. AST's 26 October 2026 release says Anatel authorized 30 MHz of S-band and secondary use of up to 20 MHz at 700 MHz through four regional operators. AST's 27 October 2026 letter to Panama's regulator describes Anatel Acórdão nº 137/2026 as a move to 10+10 MHz blocks. Those two company statements are not the act, so the megahertz figures stay source pending on the spectrum page. Reporting names Brisanet, Unifique, iez! telecom, and Amazônia 5G. The owner says the authorization runs through Brazilsat and that AST is testing with TIM Brasil. Neither of those two points turned up here. TIM's 10 November 2026 comments describe negotiations, not a test already running.
Blacklift
On 6 November 2026 AST said it will build Blacklift, a 20-ton rocket designed to carry up to five BlueBirds to low Earth orbit, with first use aimed at late 2028. Firefly is to supply Miranda and Vira engines for the first three rockets and license AST to manufacture them. No FAA or FCC launch filing for the vehicle was found, and the company documents opened here do not state a stage count or a launch site.
What they say is next
As of the 9 November 2026 quarterly update, AST expected initial intermittent coverage in the United States, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom before the end of 2026. BlueBirds 14, 15, and 16 had been shipped to Cape Canaveral in September, waiting on a SpaceX date. BlueBirds 17–19 were expected to ship by the end of November for a Blue Origin launch AST put in early 2027. The same note targets about 45 BlueBirds in orbit by the middle of 2027, and launch agreements covering more than 100 BlueBirds deployed in total during 2027 and 2028. All of that is the company's schedule, not a launch log.
AST has also said that roughly 45 to 60 BlueBirds would be enough for continuous coverage in selected markets (United States, Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and U.S. government use), and about 90 for 24/7 coverage worldwide. The FCC grant itself allows up to 248 satellites. Those three numbers answer different questions: a company coverage target, and a licensed maximum.
Last reviewed 2026-11-14. Sources are linked beside the claims they support.