ASTS News
R40 coverage and dated third-party headlines for AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (ASTS).
R40 Coverage
Rocket Lab Is Buying $884 Million of Iridium Revenue at 9x Sales. Its Own Enterprise Value Sits at 58x.
Iridium's last twelve months of revenue are 115% of Rocket Lab's own, and the $8.0 billion enterprise value works out at 9.0x those sales against the 57.6x the market puts on Rocket Lab. The much-watched $67.50 collar floor turns out to be the small number in the deal: across its entire band the stock consideration moves only between 4.0% and 6.6% of shares.
SpaceX Paid $19.6 Billion for Spectrum That Earns Nothing Until 2028. On Our Own Model It Breaks Even at 23 Million Handsets.
The EchoStar spectrum is the precondition for a vertical our SPCX model scores at zero revenue for six more quarters. Priced against what that vertical is worth on the same model — $63.0B, or $4.78 of a $187.12 fair value — the spectrum costs 31% of what it unlocks, and the break-even is 23.2 million monetised handsets against the 74.3 million the model already assumes.
Satellite Spectrum: What the Bands Are, How the Licences Are Won, and Who Holds What
A guide from first principles: what a frequency band is and what each one is for, why a satellite's orbit decides which bands it can use, how the ITU and the Outer Space Treaty actually hand out the right to transmit, and what SpaceX and its competitors hold today — including the 65 MHz from EchoStar.
AST SpaceMobile Burned $695 Million in the June Quarter. Its $3.7 Billion of Pro Forma Cash Is Five More Quarters of That.
Operating cash less capital expenditure was -$694.8 million in the June quarter, 22 times the $31.5 million of revenue booked in the same three months. Against the company's own $3.7 billion pro forma cash figure that is 5.3 quarters, and the entire $1.30 billion contracted backlog — if it were collected in cash tomorrow — buys 1.9 of them.
August 2026
SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile Circle Grain's 800 MHz Spectrum
Both are reported to have expressed interest in ~$6bn of 800 MHz licences Grain Management took from T-Mobile in a swap; the licences span 3,224 counties, preliminary bids are due the first week of September and the FCC has set 5 November for completion.
FCC Grants Temporary Authority to Test 800 MHz Direct-to-Device
The Commission granted AST limited special temporary authority to test satellite-to-smartphone connectivity in the 800 MHz band, the same frequencies at issue in the Grain licence sale.
Q2 2026 Business Update: Revenue $31.5m, Backlog $1.30bn
Revenue of $31.5m from gateway deliveries and US Government milestones; total operating expenses $329.1m including a $125.9m loss on the BlueBird 7 involuntary conversion; FY2026 revenue guidance of $150-200m reaffirmed.
July 2026
$1.0bn of 1.625% Convertible Senior Notes due 2034 Issued
The private offering closed on 20 July 2026 with an option for a further $150m; the company reported over $3.7bn of pro forma cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash.
Liquidity Update Filed Alongside the Notes Offering
Preliminary unaudited figures as of 30 June 2026 were disclosed to support the convertible offering, including total cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash.
May 2026
Avellan on CNBC: 'Every American Can Get Our Service'
The CEO said launches should run roughly monthly and repeated the claim of hundreds of megabits per second delivered directly to unmodified handsets.