AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to AST SpaceMobile's First Quarter twenty twenty six Business Update. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Max Colbert, Investor Relations Manager of AST SpaceMobile. Thank you. You may begin. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'm also joined by Chairman and CEO, Abel Avillon President, Scott Wisniewski and CFO and Chief Legal Officer, Andy Johnson. Let me refer you to Slide two of the presentation, which contains our Safe Harbor disclaimer. During today's call, we may make certain forward looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, and as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the forward looking statements on this call. For more information about these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the Risk Factors section of AST SpaceMobile's annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended 12/31/2025, with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other documents filed by AST SpaceMobile with the SEC from time to time.

1:06 Also, after our initial remarks, we will be starting our Q and A section with questions submitted in advance by our shareholders. For those of you who may be new to our company and mission, there are nearly 6,000,000,000 mobile phones today around the world, but many of us still experience gaps in coverage as we live, work, and travel. Additionally, there are billions of people without cellular broadband and who remain unconnected to the global economy. The markets we are pursuing at AST SpaceMobile are massive, and the problem we are solving is important and touches nearly all of us. In this backdrop, SpaceMobile is building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with everyday unmodified mobile devices, supported by our extensive IP and patent portfolio. It is now my pleasure to pass this over to Chairman and CEO, Abel Avalon, who will go through our activities since our last public update.

1:58 Thank you, Max. AST SpaceMobile start to 2026 reflect our progress in scaling manufacturing and production, mobile network operator partner expansion, ground network integration, multi partner launch and a fortress capital position. These advancements across nearly all initiatives help solidify why AST SpaceMobile is the only company whose technology is positioned to capture the direct to device cellular broadband opportunity input. We continue to execute on key business objectives at the company transitioning from R and D stage to fully scale operational deployment. On the manufacturing front, we have over zero five million square feet of manufacturing and operations space globally as we continue to scale our manufacturing effort. We're in advanced stages of producing and assembly through Bluebird '33.

2:54 We face a race completed through Bluebird '28, a detailed cadence of our '25 and '26 deployment plan is shown in the accompanying quarterly presentation found on our IR website. Our 95% vertically integrated manufacturing strategy is significant long term advantage with our manufacturing team ramping up significantly over the past several quarters. I am thrilled to report that the leadership we have in place is now producing microns, phased arrays, stackable satellite composite structure at an accelerating pace to support our target cadence of six fully assembled satellites per month. Our COSTOM ASIC is designed to support up to 10 gigahertz of processing bandwidth per satellite and is expected to nearly double the peak data speed recently achieved using our on orbit Block one Blue Bird satellites, helping unlock true space based cellular functionality and enabling native cellular capabilities that consumers now expect everywhere all the time.

4:03 As a reminder, we're building the largest space array in low Earth orbit. We possess the ability to deploy significant power to orbit at a meaningful scale and competitive cost. They give us an ample opportunity to scale our space based cellular broadband constellation based on demand signals from our growing leads of partners. That is a unique important concept for the direct to device industry with even broader implications as space becomes an energy rich and data native industrial environment. We continue to leverage these advantages by driving innovation into every aspect of our satellite capabilities. We are deploying specific AI edge computing and AI spectrum management features for on orbit capabilities to incorporate into novel AI platforms and maximize user experience.

5:02 We currently expect to integrate these features into our next generation bluebird satellite targeting Blue Birds in production by year end. Our multi provider orbital launch strategy features orbital launch aboard Blue Origin, SpaceX and others. As a reflection of our multi partner launch strategy, we're returning to the launch pad at the Cape Canaveral in mid June with Blue Birds eight, nine and ten aboard a Falcon nine launch vehicle. We are excited to get back to the launch pad very soon and are targeting approximately 45 satellites in orbit by year end through a combination of our launch providers. Our ground based gateway architecture act as a native extension of our network operator partners, interfacing directly with Nokia Inovies and MNO cores over standard 3GPP protocols.

5:59 This means our gateway's architecture and or satellites network scales negatively with four gs, five gs and future six gs standards reducing network integration complexity. We're actively scaling our ground network integration efforts around the world including in The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, India, Brazil, Spain, Germany, France, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Japan, New Zealand, The Philippines, Cote D'Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal, targeting a combined population of 2,900,000,000 people. It is an incredible feat to scale our business outside of The United States, an effort which requires significant scale and commitment from our company, our partners and global regulators.

6:51 We continue to make progress on partner and ecosystem network integration as we move closer to service activation in key partner markets. We're actively deploying hundreds of fixed cells per week. As part of this effort, achieved satellite to satellite cellular broadband connectivity handoff without disrupting to the connectivity experience on the smartphones. Additionally, we recently achieved peak data speed of an incredible 98.9 megabits per second using our in orbit Block one satellites. This latest record was conducted over international waters directly to unmodified off the shelf smartphones.

7:39 This achievement is significant for several reasons. It further validates that our satellite technology is the only one specifically designed for space based direct to device cellular broadband. Achieving this speed that our partners expect for the customer no matter where they are located everywhere in the planet. And we're just getting We expect our on orbit Block two Bluebird satellite to nearly double the peak data speed recently achieved using our on orbit Block one Bluebird satellite when enabled with enough spectrum on a region by region basis. AST SpaceMobile is mobile network operator partner of choice for space based cellular broadband because our band pipe system integration solution works naturally with existing terrestrial infrastructure and is designed to support space based cellular broadband connectivity.

8:35 Our ecosystem includes nearly 60 global MNO partners covering over 3,000,000,000 subscribers including key partners like AT and T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, STC, Bell Canada and Tebus. Our commercial advancements have enabled us to secure over $1,200,000,000 in contracted revenue commitments from our commercial partners and we plan to accelerate this as we further deploy our network. On the regulatory front, we're granted FCC authorization to operate our Blue Bird satellite constellation commercially in The United States, enabling direct to device connectivity in The U. S. On premium low band spectrum in coordination with our partners Verizon, AT and T and FirstNet.

9:22 The grant also reflects the FCC recognition of our ability to deliver direct to device cellular robot connectivity from space and operate alongside terrestrial communication network, fully validating our unique technology and network design. We thank the current administration, the FCC, and Commissioner Carr for his leadership in bringing new technologies online to advise United States leadership in space. Our comprehensive spectrum strategy leverages our satellite technology, which is capable of tuning within approximately 1,100 megahertz of low band and mid band tunable MNO spectrum globally, including 45 megahertz of MSN lower mid band spectrum and 60 megahertz of licensed S band spectrum priority rights outside of North America.

10:15 In particular, the 45 megahertz of L band spectrum is currently in use, providing us with an ample opportunity to drive business against the use of that spectrum. Additionally, the lower mid band L band spectrum feature higher quality propagation characteristics when compared to other MSS frequencies. This means more opportunities to grow subscriber capacity and bring additional service to targeted markets around the world alongside our MNO partners. We expect the combination of our satellite technology featuring the largest space array in low depth orbits and access to MNO shared spectrum, MSS spectrum, and AI spectrum management features will enable us to effectively multiply spectrum efficiencies and develop a completely new layer of connectivity on a global scale.

11:11 The combination of building a native space based cellular broadband network with our partner First Integration Design is second to none. We are supported by our extensive IP and patent portfolio of approximately 3,900 patents and patent pending claims. We successfully advanced from early stage R and D to scale deployment of satellites and ground based gateways. In closing, our company had key assets including IP, manufacturing, partnerships, spectrum and balance sheet cash with approximately $3,500,000,000 to build and launch over 100 Bluebird satellites to enable global coverage of SpaceMobile. Our team is focused, disciplined and executing against our deployment plan. We're encouraged by the progress we're making and the momentum we see across our commercial, regulatory and government initiatives.

12:11 And with that, I will turn the call back to Scott. Thank you, Abel. Since our last business update ten weeks ago, we have continued to execute against the broader commercialization priorities we laid out at the start of the year. Our key task leading the business is to leverage our revolutionary technology deployment and best in class partnerships to achieve our 2026 and 2027 revenue objectives as we build out the revenue platform company to maximize long term shareholder value. The market pull for our network, the one we're deploying today, a global resilient space based cellular broadband network with dual use capabilities, it remains extremely strong. Against this backdrop, we have recently signed additional mobile network operator contracts and received additional U.

12:59 S. Government awards. First, we announced an agreement with TELUS as our second partner in Canada, who also made an equity investment in ASTS. TELUS and Bell will be our commercial partners in Canada. And in Africa, we are pleased to be partnering with Axiom Telecom, a pan African operator in 11 different countries, joining our existing agreements with Vodacom, Orange and MTN. Our dialogue globally with mobile network operators has increased in both volume and depth and we've been building out the broad organizational capabilities to support the rollout of commercial services in these markets. Looking ahead, we expect additional MNO agreements to be signed with increasing velocity throughout 2026. On the U. S. Government side, we continue to grow the pipeline with three additional awards through prime contractors.

13:52 These awards address three unique use cases across secure communications and non communications capabilities, reflecting strong proof points ahead of larger contracts. Alongside further developing these important security capabilities, including those related to Golden Dome, these awards are expected to contribute significantly to 2026 revenue objectives. As a reminder, our goal across all our contracts is to develop capabilities that can grow into programs of record with billions of annual revenue potential in aggregate over the medium and long term for missions important to U. S. National security. As a commitment to these efforts, we've made significant progress expanding our organizational capabilities through AST SpaceMobile's wholly owned government and defense subsidiary.

14:42 This alignment enables us to better allocate resources and expand our organizational capabilities to best serve The U. S. Government customer. Transitioning to revenue, we achieved nearly $15,000,000 in reported revenue during Q1, again driven by milestone achievements under our U. S. Government contracts and commercial gateway deliveries to MNOs. On the commercial side, we saw execution with four different customers that contributed to revenue in the quarter. With the hardware to deliver initial commercial services now in their respective regions across five continents, the ground readiness initiatives that Abel referenced are firmly underway. This is an important step to have started during 2025 because it gives the teams on the ground time to prepare, deploy real hardware solutions for backhaul and integrate with customer network cores.

15:31 This is a very significant operational effort that is an important leading indicator ahead of commercial service activation. 2026 revenue will benefit from this commercial deployment effort as we deliver against existing contractual orders and sign new contract wins, both of which show a deep pipeline. Turning to revenue from our U. S. Government business. We executed across five existing contracts during the quarter, further demonstrating the in orbit capabilities of our Blue Bird satellites. To give you some additional color, we advanced milestones under our prime contract with the Space Development Agency as part of the Europa Track two Commercial Solutions program under HALO. This work is focused on delivering operationally relevant tactical communications capabilities directly to government and devices.

16:22 We also advanced our communications efforts with Milestones Against Contracts where Fairwinds is the prime contractor, some of which is a follow on related to our previously demonstrated NTN tactical SAC time capabilities. That field test showcased real time connectivity to a tactical assault kit over a VPN with multimedia streaming via the tactical assault kit and secure multi party video calls, all executed on standard unmodified smartphones with active participation from US Ingo Paycom, including representation from multiple branches of the United States Armed Services. Lastly, we also continue to execute against our contract with the Space Development Agency through a prime contractor for non communications on orbit testing and capability development.

17:10 The progress we are seeing across both commercial and government activities supports our confidence in reiterating our 2026 revenue guidance of $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 This outlook is supported by our existing contracted pipeline with additional upside potential from new government awards. What we are seeing in the first half of twenty twenty six is continued progress in building out the revenue base ahead of a large jump in 2027. As I described on the last call, we see the 2027 revenue opportunity approaching $1,000,000,000 comprised of revenue both long term contracted or highly recurring in nature. We expect this growth to be driven from, one, our scaled network in orbit for cellular broadband service as it becomes available in some of the largest markets worldwide and two, providing one or more increasingly scaled use cases for the U. S. Government.

18:04 Taken together, we are steadily executing across our key priorities, remaining focused on the critical near term objectives like revenue generation, partner ecosystem, and scaled network deployment. I'm now happy to pass the call over to Andy to walk through our financial update. Thanks, Scott, and good afternoon, everyone. During the first quarter of twenty twenty six, we began executing against our 2025 end call in March, we took significant steps to raise critical capital to enable funding our constellation in support of our bold objectives in the months ahead. Revenue in Q1 came in consistent with our internal plans.

18:50 We expect revenue to build sequentially each quarter during 2026 with contributions from both commercial gateway revenue and U. S. Government contracts, which I will discuss further in just a moment. Importantly, we remain on track to meet our full year 2026 revenue guidance of 150,000,000 to $200,000,000 With respect to manufacturing, we continue to progress toward the achievement of our goals to support our active escalating launch schedule through the end of this year and beyond. We currently have Bluebird 11 to Bluebird 33 in advanced stages of assembly with phased arrays completed through Bluebird '28. Our manufacturing progress positions us well to support our launch target of approximately 45 Bluebird satellites in orbit by the end of twenty twenty six.

19:43 The strength of our balance sheet positions us to complete the full build out and launch of a constellation of over 100 Bluebird satellites to provide worldwide space mobile service while also funding the deployment of our controlled spectrum bands on a global basis, monetizing the capabilities of our proprietary technology to capture the evolving commercial opportunities related to artificial intelligence, enhancing investment in government space opportunities in The United States, reducing our higher interest debt, and pursuing opportunistic investments to accelerate our space mobile services and capabilities. AST SpaceMobile is proud to be the creator and leader in the direct to device industry, and we continue making investments to move quickly and responsibly to bring space based cellular broadband connectivity directly to unmodified smartphones.

20:37 Our intentional focus on investing in operational growth led to higher adjusted operating expenses in Q1 of twenty twenty six, consistent with our expectations previously communicated during our fourth quarter and full year earnings call. Moving to the operating and capital metrics slide, let's review the key metrics for the first quarter in more detail. On the first chart, for the first quarter of twenty twenty six, we incurred non GAAP adjusted operating expenses of $91,200,000 versus $95,700,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty five. As a reminder, non GAAP adjusted operating expenses exclude non cash operating costs, including depreciation and amortization and stock based compensation.

21:26 The quarter over quarter decrease of $4,500,000 resulted primarily from a $17,600,000 decrease in adjusted cost of revenues due to lower revenue in the quarter, together with a $1,900,000 decrease in R and D costs, partially offset by a $9,200,000 increase in adjusted engineering services costs and a $5,800,000 increase in adjusted general and administrative costs. Our Q1 twenty twenty six adjusted operating expenses excluding adjusted cost of revenues were $79,800,000 compared to $66,800,000 in Q4 of twenty twenty five, which is within the 70,000,000 to $80,000,000 guidance for adjusted operating expenses previously provided.

22:17 The primary drivers of the increase versus the prior quarter were growth in our workforce, including contractors and consultants, our expanded production facilities and other professional fees, including legal fees related to our spectrum usage rights transactions and regulatory initiatives. Turning towards the second chart on this slide, our capital expenditures for the first quarter of twenty twenty six were approximately $257,000,000 versus approximately $4.00 $7,000,000 for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty five. This figure was made up primarily of capitalized direct materials and labor for our Block satellites with the balance relating to facility and production equipment expenditures. This amount was below the quarterly guidance of $350,000,000 to $425,000,000 that I provided during our last earnings call due to a change in the timing of launch contract payments, which will now be reflected in our Q2 guidance.

23:18 For the second quarter of twenty twenty six, we estimate that our adjusted operating expenses excluding adjusted cost of revenues will increase to the range of approximately $85,000,000 to $95,000,000 as we further absorb the full quarter costs of our recently expanded workforce and continue growing talent across our organization to scale our efforts to design, manufacture, launch and operate our growing satellites constellation as well as pursue the monetization of our L and S band spectrum usage rights. We expect our capital expenditures to increase in Q2 of twenty twenty six to a range of $575,000,000 to $650,000,000 primarily driven by the timing of launch payments related to our near term launches, which as I previously explained vary from quarter to quarter.

24:11 To put this quarterly increase in capital expenditures into context, had the launch payments been made in Q1 like we originally planned instead of making them in Q2, our guidance for Q2 capital expenditures would have remained in the same general range as Q1. Importantly, our continued spend on growth related CapEx reflects our increasing satellite production and active orbital launch plans. We continue to estimate that the average capital costs, including direct materials and launch costs for our constellation of over 90 Block II Bluebird satellites will fall in the range of $21,000,000 to $23,000,000 per satellite, excluding certain initial satellites that are used to validate performance and operations.

24:57 Our cost per satellite estimates are subject to fluctuations based on dynamic geopolitical factors that could impact our costs. As a reminder, the timing of the changes in our adjusted operating expenses and capital expenditures, as I have just described, could be delayed or may not be realized due to a variety of factors. In the first quarter, we recognized revenue of $14,700,000 primarily driven by commercial gateway deliveries and various U. S. Government service milestone achievements. Our revenue declined during the first quarter as we expected due to the timing of gateway deployment to our commercial customers and the timing of completion of certain government contract milestones. With respect to revenue generation, we believe we can enable continuous SpaceMobile service across key markets such as United States, Europe, Japan, and other strategic markets with the launch and operation of approximately 45 to 60 Bluebird satellites and additional strategic worldwide markets with the launch operation of approximately 90 Bluebird satellites.

26:05 Further, as we continue to launch and deploy our constellation, we will continue to support U. S. Government applications currently ongoing and accelerating as our constellation grows. As we discussed in our Q4 twenty twenty five earnings call, we expect to generate full year 2026 revenue in the range of $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 We manage the top line with a focus on full year performance given the quarterly variability inherent in our business, including the timing of contract signings, equipment sales and milestone achievements. As a result, we believe our revenue performance is best evaluated on a full year basis. As we continue advancing our launch and network activation initiatives, we expect revenue to grow meaningfully each subsequent quarter this year.

26:56 We expect revenue to continue to be driven by gateway deliveries, achievement of contracted milestones for the U. S. Government, MNO consulting services, with potential upside related to the recognition of initial commercial service revenue. Quarterly revenue will likely vary significantly depending on achievement of milestones and the timing of customer activities. I'd like to remind you that we believe that approximately half of a revenue opportunity within our commercial pipeline this year is already booked or contracted. The remaining portion consists of a combination of advanced stage opportunities that have not yet been signed as well as net new business we expect to secure over the course of this year. The achievement of our revenue plan remains subject several contingencies, including the successful launch and deployment of Block two Bluebird satellites related to U. S. Government applications contractual milestone achievements, critical gateway equipment sales to our MNO partners in support of their anticipated commercialization efforts of SpaceMobile service and service revenues in connection with the activation of our commercial service provided by our existing and planned deployed and operational satellites.

28:08 Finally, on the final chart in the slide, our cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as of 03/31/2026 was approximately $3,500,000,000 inclusive of cash raised in February via the convertible notes offering with a 2.25 percent ten year coupon at an effective strike price of $116.30 per share. Our balance sheet continues to provide us financial flexibility to make further investments to expedite the timing of and augment the capabilities of our SpaceMobile service. Consistent with our last update, we do not have any plans to pursue additional convertible debt in 2026.

28:54 In closing, we're off to a solid start to the year at AST SpaceMobile and critically our 2026 objectives fully remain in place. With full recognition of a significant amount of hard work ahead of us, revenue is building on plan and satellite manufacturing is increasing to support our orbital launch campaign. We look forward to sharing successful launch milestones with you in Q2 and throughout the second half of twenty twenty six. Thank you for your continued support as we continue the hard work of connecting the unconnected at AST SpaceMobile. And with that, this completes the presentation component of our business update call and I'll pass it back to Scott. Thank you, Andy. Before we go to the queue of analyst questions, we'd like to address a few of the questions submitted by our investors.

29:43 Operator, could you please start us off with the first question? Scott from Indiana asked, historically, guidance for Block two Blue Bird has targeted peak download speeds of 120 megabits per second, presumably requiring your proprietary ASIC chips. In the last quarterly update, it was stated that FM1, which does not have this ASIC chip, is expected to greatly exceed 120 megabits peak download speeds. Can you clarify current expectations on how FM1 versus ASIC enabled bluebirds are expected to perform? Thank you, Todd, for the questions. Well, this morning we did announce that from the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the ocean, on international waters, we did achieve peak data rates very close to 100 megabits per second.

30:38 As we into standard device without any modification to the device, Neither require any firmware or software upgrade to the device. This device as is today. With the BV6, which is already in orbit, and BV8, nine and ten, nearly double that capacity. We think that this in addition to AI features that we will implement into the satellites, large block of spectrum that we'll be adding to the network, particularly the L band and the S band MSS spectrums that we plan to add into the constellation, and AI spectrum management features that help us to multiply the perceived performance of the network, make this complete change of what is possible far, far ahead of any other technology that is attempting to enter the market.

32:02 Andreas from New York asks, you have repeatedly emphasized that you are in a race against yourself in the field of d two c broadband technology. Given the increasing attempts by other companies to enter the market, is this still true? And what leads do you currently see over your competitors? What role do your patents play in keeping the competition at bay? Thank you, Andre. That's a great question. Well, we always from the very, very beginning have focused on delivering cellular broadband for which you need a very large array, you need spectrum and you need the ability to integrate that to partners MNOs.

32:52 On that end, we have a very unique position. We had access through our MNO partners to around 3,000,000,000 subscribers. We are delivering broadband capacity provided obviously there is enough spectrum attached to the satellites today within orbit satellites. As I said earlier, we are on the hundreds of megabits already. We plan to nearly double that as we continue to activate eight, nine and ten as we launch them in the next few weeks. And then when you put in perspective that when you combine a very, very large satellite array with significant block of spectrums that are a combination between IMT, MNO, partner provider spectrum with our own MSS.

33:56 We have access to more spectrum than anybody else. So we believe that as of today we are the only technology that has a space based cellular broadband capability given the size and our architecture and the 3,900 patent pending claims that we have around our technology. Ben from Virginia asks, Can you update us on your composite readiness specifically? Are you now manufacturing all structural carbon fiber reinforced polymer components and reflectors entirely in house? And if not, is the plan to? Thank you, Ben, for the question.

34:46 Listen, the way that we stack the satellites is think about tuna cans where you put three of them, one on top of another on the Falcon nine, up to eight of them on the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket or up to five of them in the Vulcan ULA rocket. So that structure is our design. It was a very, very difficult design to achieve because everything that you have in terms of mass get multiplied by the G of the rocket. So you have extraordinary amount of forces that get applied to the bottom satellites in that stack.

35:37 But the answer is yes, we are now producing them at rate. We own all the IP of how this is done. We are extending we have over 1,000 people dedicated to build these compositive structures all across our satellites. And we are now also extending and automating and robotizing how we do these structures in Midland. All of these to achieve and keep our six satellites per month fully assembled every month. Where the composite structure is a very, very important aspect of what we needed to do. So we're fully vertically integrated.

36:26 We own the IP. We control the manufacturing of everything on our satellites, around 95% of the bill of material from the composite structures, the new composite structures. That's how you see that in the pictures of the manufacturing they turn from aluminum structures to composite, that's what they look like. And then we also own and control everything down to our ASIC in supply chain of how we build and produce our satellites. Scott from Indiana also asks, any perspective you can share on progress made related to Golden Dome, Halo Europa, or other government contracts?

37:15 I'll take that one. So, as I said in my remarks, you know, the backdrop for U. S. Government contracts continues to be really strong. We most recently saw a budget request for the Space Force of over $70,000,000,000 which was by far the largest and there was a heavy emphasis on space activities. So, it's a good environment for our capability to be maturing. And we've been doing a lot of both communications and non communications with the agencies who are the big buyers right now with space capabilities. So this is the right backdrop. We have the right capability. Remember, we're currently deploying the largest ever phase arrays in low Earth orbit. And that gives us really an unprecedented capability to go to regular, small, low profile handsets, as well as do radar capabilities.

38:10 And when you look at the backdrop of awards and budgets over the last three to six months, there's been a real strong uptick as expected in the Space Force budget and in allocations related to Golden Dome. And specifically, we're in a stage now where our fees are being issued, awards are being made for key elements of Golden Dome that'll relate to us, things that you see that are space based radar and others. So this is really big moment for us. You're going to see some revenue coming in through US government that's going be a big contributor to our 2026 revenue. And for 2027, those awards that we'll receive or expect to receive over the next six months are going be very significant for that effort.

38:56 And with that, I'd like to thank our shareholders for submitting those questions. Operator, let's open up the call to analyst questions now. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Scholl with UBS. Please proceed with your question. Great.

39:41 Thank you for taking the questions. Now that you've had a few weeks to digest, can you just walk us through what happened with Blue Bird seven and what gives you comfort this will not repeat going forward and that New Glenn can scale accordingly? And last quarter you mentioned you began to integrate your satellites with another heavy launch vehicle and I believe I heard you say ULA earlier. Where does the integration process stand and could VCU rely upon them this year? Is this more a consideration for '27 and beyond? Thank you. Hey, Chris, I'll dive in. So, we were pretty open on Bluebird seven the day of, we knew what happened immediately and we were very open on what it is. At the end of the day, remember, we have 30 satellites in advanced stage of production at the factory.

40:26 So while it was a loss, we're on to the next. So yeah, I would say that we're working closely with Blue. They're working through the investigation. An upper stage anomaly like this is not uncommon early in programs. And, you know, we feel optimistic about them getting back to the pad soon. And when you look at their cadence for the year, you know, we all know that they landed the booster, which was a great milestone for their cadence. And now they have two boosters sitting in their integration facility ready to get into the cycle. So, we think the outlook there looks good. And like I said, we're optimistic. And on the second part of the question, we've mentioned that we have contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin and others.

41:18 We're also doing some integration activities in there with others to get ready for potential launches. And so listen, we've designed the rocket, as you know, in our business strategy to be launch vehicle agnostic and we're buyers of launch and across the entire heavy launcher footprint. So we were prepared for this years ago with our strategy. We think we selected the right partners and we've got good partners on top of that, that we're working with. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Searle with ROTH Capital Partners. Please proceed with your question. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question.

42:06 Maybe just a quick follow-up. Is there a timeline associated with the FAA investigation of when you would expect that to be concluded? And then looking to the expected commercial launch of services at the end of this year, how many MNOs are you expecting to be live at launch? And what are you guys thinking about in terms of the ground station number that we should be expecting by the end of calendar twenty six? So, hey Scott. To the first part of the question on blue, no, there hasn't been a publicly disclosed timeline. But like I said, these sorts of investigations are pretty commonplace. And there's been some, you know, good track record recently. So, with other launchers, we've had similar issues. So listen, we think we're really focused on our next launch, obviously, with Falcon nine and the next three Bluebirds.

42:58 But like I said, we're optimistic with Blue Origin. And I think, you know, we'll be in a good position there. But as you know, we have a multi launcher strategy. That's been the strategy from the get go. And in terms of what was the second question again, Scott? Oh, Scott, just in terms of the number of MNOs you would expect to be live with, you know, provided you got 45 satellites up in the sky in the fourth quarter, you know, how many carriers, how many coverage should we be thinking about in terms of that are adjustable from day one of launch? Well, it's a global network as you know, so we put a lot more disclosure in our remarks today about the regions we're focused on and the countries we're focused on. So all in all, where we are currently doing ground integration efforts, some which are quite advanced like in The United States and other countries in Europe, some others that are getting started. It's a pipeline, there's lot of countries to focus on, but just on the countries listed in our deck, you see a population coverage of about 2,900,000,000.

44:05 So in terms of how we prioritize amongst that, you've heard from us before, key markets like The US, Canada, UK, Japan, Saudi. So, we're looking at that list and it's growing every day, but we want to give a little bit more incremental detail today with that in our deck and in our remarks on the other countries we're focused on. Great. Thanks so much. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Funk with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question. Yes, great. Yes, thank you for the question. So I want to go back to the launch target. I think you talked last quarter about stacking up to eight satellites per launch. And so just wondering about the hurdles, authorizations required to get to the eight. And then Abel, earlier in the call, you mentioned, you know, deploying AI edge computing features, I think, in the next generation of satellite. And I want to get a better understanding of how that's going to improve either the efficiency or performance of next generation satellite?

45:18 Yeah, let me answer the first question. As I explained earlier in the call, we do have now the technology and we are manufacturing that at rate, which is basically the technology to be able to stack multiple launches, multiple satellites in a single launch. The way that we do it is basically on New Glenn we can stack up to eight, In Volcan we can stack up to five and in Falcon nine we can stack up to three. And this is a self contained structure, it's full composite.

46:04 It is manufactured under our IP, we are also growing, we have over a thousand people dedicated to building these structures where they are very, very difficult to build and test. But we are now very close to getting six of them every month and being able to stack it with each of the different launch partners. To your second question about AI, we are not in the play of hyperscaler systems in space, but what we are incorporating to our satellites, which you will start seeing in the production batches towards the end of the year, is the ability to edge compute and load AI capabilities on board that can be very efficiently integrated also to the UEs for a variety of users around AI.

47:14 As relate to AI spectrum management, basically as you fly, you have resources to administrate dynamically basically power and spectrum. As you know, we can tune within 1,100 megahertz of spectrum and then we have blocks of spectrum with our MNO partners, that's called IMT spectrum that we can tune country by country, location by location, and also we had our MSS. And the AI spectrum management is a system behind all of that that basically predict traffic, predict location, predict where people are, and then allocate that very, very intelligently.

48:10 Remember, on a satellite you have 2,800 square kilometers of view of what's going on underneath you and AI basically has the ability to predict where the traffic will be as the satellites move and dynamically allocate resources into the satellite. That's typically the power or spectrum. And the end result of that is the perceived user perception of what amount of spectrum it is used or how efficient it is, it is a multiple. So you basically can play with the whole field of view in how you allocate dynamically the spectrum square kilometer by square kilometer.

48:57 Great. Thanks. Thank you so much for that. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Crawford with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question. Thank you. Just to clarify, with the AST 5,000 ASIC, that's been expected to enable 120 megabit per second peak data speeds. But is it the AI spectrum management that that that gets you up closer to to 200 megabits per second by year end? And then and then also on the noncommunications capabilities that you're developing in conjunction with the with the SDA, would I be would would we be correct in assuming we're talking about mid band military radars, so that's something that we're not gonna see with the initial bluebirds that are launching now, but once you incorporate L band and, me, S band into satellites?

50:00 Let me start with the defense capability. I will not be able to describe it this forum but basically it's a non communication capability that uses the same hardware that we use on our commercial satellites and that's being used today. As Scott mentioned, they're using it today, they plan to extend drastically how they use it and that is a non communication application for defense purposes. And before we leave that topic, Mike, it's important to note that that does not require mid band spectrum.

50:50 That's something we can do with low band spectrum, which we've deployed today, right? Correct. Then, as it relates to the ASIC, the ASIC is complete, it's been incorporated into the production line. The ASIC basically allowed us to upgrade the amount of bandwidth we can manage for each satellite. So, the FPGA satellites, we had a run of one gigahertz of spectrum, with the ASIC satellite we have 10 gigahertz of spectrum. So, it's a factor of 10 increase in number of gigahertz that can be constantly used per satellite.

51:38 The big data rates are actually not dependent on the FPGA or ASIC, that's how many of those connections you can have simultaneously and do not rely on the AI in order to get to the 100 megabits per second that we have on NSPGA satellites that are actually the smaller initial satellites. We expect to double the 98 MW per second that we have as we are using the VV6, which is in the ready orbit and the A9 and 10 that we will launch here very quickly. That do not require the AI management and that's pure big data rate per cell.

52:25 The AI management is basically is a way to intelligently distribute that big pipe of 10 gigahertz or one gigahertz depending on the version of the satellite intelligently where the users are and predicting where the users are going to be in order to allocate a slide of that 10 gigahertz where the traffic is needed and do it dynamically and proactively using AI engine of our own. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.

53:12 Our next question comes from the line of Brian Graff with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question. Hi, good afternoon. Apologies for the multipart kind of long question, but I really had a few questions I wanted to ask you around launch. I guess, first, do you have contracted launch capacity to do an average of basically one launch per month from June through December? I think that's what you need to do in order to get close to that 45 number. And then how diversified is the launch mix? And what if you can only do, say, one more New Glenn launch this year? Could you still get close to that 45? I don't know. This is the first time, I think you've mentioned Vulcan.

54:02 So I was wondering how much launch you were able to secure there and if that could fill that gap in. And then it sounds like you've made great progress on the manufacturing side. With 11 through 33 in production, is the next batch of satellites going to be ready to ship per se a July launch? And then the last thing I wanted to ask you about is on the stacking, do you sort of need to work your way up to the max of those ranges? In other words, on the next new blend, can you go right to eight? Or do you have to or would you prefer to, say, do three or four to make sure it goes smoothly, and then, you know, five to six, and then go to seven to eight?

54:50 Or are you just going to kind of fill these things up going forward? So, thank you. Hey, Brian. So yes, we do have contracted launch capacity to meet our target for 2026. And the way to think about it is basically a handful of blue origin launches, and a handful of SpaceX equivalent launches. And that's what gets us to the approximately 45. You know, know that Blue Origin just suffered an anomaly, right? But we're optimistic about the return of the pad. And the fact that they land, they have two boosters is a massive support for the cadence that we have always expected and that we have contracted.

55:36 So that's how we think about the mix and how we get to that 45 number. On the manufacturing side, we definitely we have capacity to keep knocking out launches one after another. Absolutely, you can see that on the page in the deck. So given where we are, we expect to have more satellites each month to be ready for launch. And we'll, of course, as we have update the public, you know, thirty to sixty, ninety days ahead of launch as those are down selected and confirmed. And then on stacking, I think you pretty much captured it, Brian. I mean, we expect on the next New Glenn, we'll launch four satellites. Part of that is kind of ramping into the stacking capability and also, of course, managing where they are in the program. But we're very mature now in the three stack and we're going to be doing that very shortly.

56:32 And the four stack likely shortly thereafter. And then, yes, six, seven, eight, know, that's how we get to our constellation size, right? That's why we've selected the vehicles we have and plan to make use of as much of the capacity of each of the rockets as we have available. That's very helpful, Scott. If I could just ask one follow-up. Where does ULA fit into that? You mentioned handful of large and handful of SpaceX. Is Vulcan sort of the backup? Or are you going to use them as well? Just curious, why that came into the conversation today? Our strategy has always been to have many launch providers, right? And so I put that in that category.

57:20 We've been developing other heavy launch providers for some time and we'll have more updates as appropriate. But right now, we plan to use Blue Origin and SpaceX and equivalents to the MAX. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Please proceed with your question. Good afternoon, Abel, Scott and Andy. Abel, what great. Abel and Scott and Andy, what do you view as the the impact of Amazon's acquisition of of Globalstar?

58:05 And do you view any potential partnership opportunities with Amazon as they seem to be very much in the early stages of entering this industry? Listen, that's a complicated transaction in the sense that that capacity and that capability, it is already on the phones through the iPhones. Basically, we see that capability as an SOS emergency system. We also see that here really at the end of the day to provide broadband, you need to have hundreds of megahertz of spectrum allocated.

59:00 So we're obviously here talking about in the case of Globalstar on a very small fraction of that. So we don't see that changing dramatically in the foreseeable future of what the capability is today and we don't see any real change of the landscape, at least for the next several years. When you think about some of our partners and you combine their spectrum, IMT, 3GPP already in the phone spectrum that they are allocating to us, plus our 50 megahertz of spectrum in MSS either on the L band and the S band. You're talking about in some cases with some partners all the way up to 100 megahertz of allocated spectrum.

59:52 So, our focus is broadband. Our focus is, of course, that broadband will come as we enable spectrum in a combination of our partner spectrum in low band and then later our mid band, low band spectrum in the L band. We see that that's a complete different proposition and different. And quite frankly, nobody is nowhere close to the capability that we have technically deliver hundreds of megabits directly to a phone from something that is flying at 70,000 miles per hour, 500 kilometers above you. And that competitive advantage and that capability is unique and what we make available to our MNO partners.

1:00:48 Great. And another question, I'm following up on the trial that was announced this morning that generated the peak downlink of 99 megabits per second. Do you have a sense of what the average downlink would look like for Block two satellites when you and your partners launch the trials later this year? Yeah, I think peak and average is tricky because also depends on what is transiting through the applications on the phone. So that's what we tend to focus about peak. But the peak data rate for our larger BV6, which is in orbit and A, nine and ten, it is approximately double of what we disclosed this morning.

1:01:43 So you're talking about closer to the 200 megabit per second. And that's peak and average, it depends on what you're transiting, is it small packages or large packages and how you interact. But in terms of network capacity, it's pretty much double of what we disclosed this morning, around double of what we disclosed this morning. Great. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Quilty with Quilty Space. Please proceed with your question. Thanks, guys. I just wanted to do a quick follow-up on the, excuse me, the non communication satellite effort on the defense side. You know, since your satellites were specifically designed as a communication platform, does that imply that you're going to have to do, you know, large redesign of satellites and adding things like optical cross links and onboard processing and pointing mechanisms?

1:02:51 Or and if so, is that something that would be customer, you know, NRE funded or something that, you know, you're putting the capital for? Hey, Chris. I mean, we didn't start working with our department award this year, not even last year. This has been many, many, many years in the coming. So, all the capabilities that they require are already built in, in what we are producing on the line. There will be additions as per the request that are not permitted to disclose, but basically the core capability of what they're using, it was incorporated many years back.

1:03:41 Great. And speaking of government defense budgets, assuming the administration, you know, gets through this reconciliation package, there's a huge generational budget increase. Can you name the specific programs where you think AST has an opportunity to target, or are you expecting that most of your opportunities are going be on the classified side? It is a combination and a lot related as the government had made it public by themselves around the Golden Dome. But we are basically in all aspects of government usage, we're present from FirstNet, from the classified, to all the way to the Golden Dome. For communications and non communication capabilities.

1:04:43 We see ourselves as a very important asset to our government, multi utility. And as I said, this has been years developing for them. They're using it today and we expect a very significant growth in revenue and opportunity in all aspects of government usage of our technology. All right. Thank you. You. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Pendy with Clear Street. Please proceed with your question. Hey, guys. Just a real quick one. When you do hit 45 satellites on the launch side, what is the commissioning time period we should be thinking about until sort of deactivation with service with MNOs?

1:05:42 Yeah, currently, we do it on the first satellite. These satellites are the largest satellite space arrays ever deployed. So, it took longer than it would take on the coming satellite. So the target is forty five days. That's what we are planning with the MNOs. Every time that we launch in forty five days, we should be using either five gs or four connectivity through them. As we keep launching, plan to reduce that timeframe to forty five, all the way down to two weeks. We don't want to promise that in the early batches of satellites. Great. And then just one more, as you're looking at this multi launch strategy plan and adding new launch partners, any thoughts if Neutron from Rocket Labs is available in 2027 on what type of capacity and if that would be a potential other partner in the launch strategy?

1:06:48 Hey, yeah, we're not going to comment on, you know, other launch providers. But you've heard our commentary today about who we're looking at. But we're we like launch providers. We like to launch with them. Our satellites are designed to fit in all the standard five meter fairings and larger ones as well. So, I think that's what we'll say at this time. Okay, great. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Scott Wisniewski for closing remarks. Thank you, operator. We want to thank all of our shareholders and research analysts for joining the call. Really appreciate it. Have a great week. Thank you. And this concludes today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time.

1:07:39 We thank you for your participation.