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Date

Monday, May 11, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

Call participants

  • Chairman and CEO — Abel Avellan
  • Chief Strategy Officer — Scott Wisniewski
  • Chief Financial Officer — Andrew Martin Johnson

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Takeaways

  • Revenue -- $14.7 million recognized, primarily from U.S. government contracts and commercial gateway deliveries.
  • Full-year revenue guidance -- Management reiterated guidance of $150 million to $200 million for 2026, with expectations for sequential quarterly increases.
  • Commercial pipeline -- Over $1.2 billion in contracted revenue commitments secured from nearly 60 global MNO partners.
  • Cash position -- Approximately $3.5 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash as of March 31, 2026, following a convertible notes offering with a 2.25% ten-year coupon at a $116.30 per share strike price.
  • Non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses -- $91.2 million in the first quarter, down $4.5 million from $95.7 million in 2025, due to lower adjusted cost of revenues and R&D costs, partially offset by higher engineering and general administrative expenses.
  • Adjusted operating expense guidance -- Estimated to increase to $85 million to $95 million for 2026 as workforce and production scale through the year.
  • Capital expenditures -- $257 million incurred, primarily in capitalized direct materials and labor for Block 2 BlueBird satellites, below prior guidance because of shifted launch payments.
  • CapEx guidance -- Full-year expected to rise to $575 million to $650 million, driven by near-term satellite launches.
  • Satellite manufacturing progress -- BlueBirds 11 through 33 are in advanced stages; phased arrays completed through BlueBird 28; targeting production of six assembled satellites per month.
  • Satellite launch plan -- Management targeting approximately 45 BlueBird satellites in orbit by year-end using Blue Origin, SpaceX, and other launch providers, with stacking capacity at three (Falcon 9), five (Vulcan), and up to eight (New Glenn) per launch.
  • Peak satellite data speed -- Achieved 98.9 megabits per second peak data speed to unmodified smartphones using Block 1 satellites; next-generation satellites are expected to nearly double this value.
  • Patents and IP -- The company holds approximately 3,900 patents and patent-pending claims supporting technology leadership.
  • Regulatory progress -- Received FCC commercial authorization to operate the BlueBird constellation in the United States, enabling direct-to-device connectivity in premium spectrum bands.
  • Spectrum portfolio -- Access to approximately 1,100 megahertz of tunable MNO spectrum, 45 megahertz of MSS lower mid-band spectrum, and 60 megahertz of S-band spectrum outside North America.
  • Operational coverage -- Ground network integration underway in regions encompassing a combined population of 2.9 billion, spanning the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.

Summary

AST SpaceMobile (ASTS +10.09%) reported $14.7 million in first-quarter revenue, driven mainly by U.S. government milestones and gateway hardware sales to mobile network operators. The company reaffirmed its 2026 revenue guidance of $150 million to $200 million, supported by a commercial pipeline worth over $1.2 billion and recent government contract wins across both communications and non-communications segments. Cash reserves stand at $3.5 billion, bolstered by a recent convertible debt raise, and management emphasized readiness to scale manufacturing and operations toward a targeted 45 satellites in orbit by year-end. Regulatory advances, including the FCC authorization for BlueBird operations in premium U.S. spectrum, complement the company's strategy of leveraging a 95% vertically integrated manufacturing model and a patent portfolio of roughly 3,900 claims. With contracts covering access to over 3 billion subscribers and network integration in populous regions, management positioned the company for further sequential revenue growth and operational milestones through 2026.

  • Management stated, "We expect revenue to build sequentially each quarter during 2026 with contributions from both commercial gateway revenue and U.S. government contracts."
  • Multi-partner launch plans with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others support the ability to launch up to eight satellites per vehicle, with manufacturing cadence now approaching six fully assembled satellites per month.
  • Chief Executive Abel Avellan reported achieving peak data rates very close to 100 megabits per second to standard devices without any modification to the device, demonstrating direct-to-device performance and anticipating near-doubling with imminent launches.
  • Chief Financial Officer Andrew Martin Johnson noted, "We continue to estimate that the average capital cost, including direct materials and launch costs, for our constellation of over 90 Block 2 BlueBird satellites will fall in the range of $21 million to $23 million per satellite."
  • Expanded commercial partnerships include TELUS and Bell in Canada as well as significant new mobile operator agreements across Africa, signaling growing global service reach.
  • Revenue concentration for the first quarter reflected both milestone-based government engineering and commercial hardware delivery, with management highlighting continued variability in quarterly figures tied to contract timing.
  • Government business momentum includes additional U.S. awards for both secure communications and non-communications capabilities, with pipeline efforts directly linked to national security and the Golden Dome program.

Industry glossary

  • MNO (Mobile Network Operator): Companies providing wireless voice and data services via terrestrial cellular infrastructure, partnering here for spectrum access and service distribution.
  • MSS (Mobile Satellite Services): Satellite spectrum bands supporting direct two-way communications with standard mobile devices from orbit.
  • NTN (Non-Terrestrial Network): Standards-based wireless network extending terrestrial coverage via satellites, enabling connectivity in unserved or remote regions.
  • Block 1/Block 2 BlueBird satellites: Generational designations for AST SpaceMobile satellites, with Block 2 featuring higher data rates and advanced ASIC-driven processing bandwidth.
  • ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit): Custom silicon components enabling higher satellite data processing and simultaneous bandwidth management.
  • FCC (Federal Communications Commission): U.S. regulatory authority controlling access to and authorization of domestic commercial spectrum use.
  • Golden Dome: Referenced U.S. national security and defense initiative using advanced space-based communications and non-communications applications.

Full Conference Call Transcript

For those of you who may be new to our company and mission, there are nearly 6 billion 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, Inc. are massive; the problem we are solving is important and touches nearly all of us. In this backdrop, AST SpaceMobile, Inc. 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 Avellan, who will go through our activities since our last public update. Thank you, Max.

Abel Avellan: AST SpaceMobile, Inc. will start 2026 reflecting 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, Inc. is the only company whose technology is positioned to capture the direct-to-device cellular broadband opportunity in full. We continue to execute on key business objectives as the company transitions from an R&D stage to fully scaled operational deployment. On the manufacturing front, we have over 0.5 million square feet of manufacturing and operations space globally as we continue to scale our manufacturing efforts. We are in advanced stages of producing and assembly through BlueBird 33.

We have phased arrays completed through BlueBird 28. A detailed cadence of our 2025 and 2026 deployment plan is shown in the accompanying quarterly presentation found on our IR website. Our 95% vertically integrated manufacturing strategy is a 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 micron phased arrays and stackable solid composite structures at an accelerating pace to support our target cadence of six fully assembled satellites per month.

Our custom 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 1 BlueBird satellites, helping unlock true space-based cellular functionality and enabling native cellular capabilities that consumers now expect everywhere, all the time. As a reminder, we are building the largest phased array in low Earth orbit. We possess the ability to deploy significant power to orbit at meaningful scale and competitive cost. That gives us ample opportunity to scale our space-based cellular broadband constellation based on demand signals from our growing list 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. We currently expect to integrate these features into our next-generation BlueBird satellites, targeting BlueBirds in production by year end. Our multiple-provider orbital launch strategy features orbital launches aboard Blue Origin, SpaceX, and others.

As a reflection of our multi-partner launch strategy, we are returning to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in mid-June with BlueBirds 8, 9, and 10 aboard a Falcon 9 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 acts as a native extension of our network operator partners, interfacing directly with Nokia, Infinera, and MNO cores over standard 3GPP protocols. This means our gateway architecture and our satellite network scale natively with 4G, 5G, and future 6G standards, reducing network integration complexity.

We are 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, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal, targeting a combined population of 2.9 billion 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. We continue to make progress on partner and ecosystem network integration as we move closer to service activation in key partner markets.

We are actively deploying hundreds of fixed cells per week as part of this effort, and achieved satellite-to-satellite cellular broadband connectivity handoff without disrupting the connectivity experience on smartphones. Additionally, we recently achieved a peak data speed of an incredible 98.9 megabits per second using our in-orbit Block 1 satellites. This latest record was conducted over international waters directly to unmodified off-the-shelf smartphones. 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 the speeds that our partners expect for their customers, no matter where they are located on the planet. And we are just getting started.

We expect our on-orbit Block 2 BlueBird satellites to nearly double the peak data speed recently achieved using our on-orbit Block 1 BlueBird satellites when enabled with enough spectrum on a region-by-region basis. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. is the mobile network operator partner of choice for space-based cellular broadband because our band-pipe system integration solution works natively with existing terrestrial infrastructure and is designed to support space-based cellular broadband connectivity. Our ecosystem includes nearly 60 global MNO partners covering over 3 billion subscribers, including key partners like AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, STC, Bell Canada, and TELUS.

Our commercial advancements have enabled us to secure over $1.2 billion 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 were granted FCC authorization to operate our BlueBird 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&T, and FirstNet. The grant also reflects the FCC’s recognition of our ability to deliver direct-to-device cellular broadband connectivity from space and operate alongside the rest of the communications network, further 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 advance 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 MSS lower mid-band spectrum, and 60 megahertz of licensed S-band spectrum priority rights outside of North America. In particular, the 45 megahertz of L-band spectrum is currently unused, providing us with an ample opportunity to drive business against the use of that spectrum. Additionally, lower mid-band L-band spectrum features higher quality propagation characteristics when compared to other MSS frequencies.

This means more opportunity 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 phased array in low Earth orbit—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. 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 have successfully advanced from early-stage R&D to scaled deployment of satellites and ground-based gateways. In closing, our company has key assets, including IP, manufacturing, partnerships, spectrum, and significant cash with approximately $3.5 billion to build and launch over 100 BlueBird satellites to enable global coverage of SpaceMobile service. Our team is focused, disciplined, and executing against our deployment plan. We are encouraged by the progress we are making and the momentum we see across our commercial, regulatory, and government initiatives. And with that, I will turn the call back to Scott.

Scott Wisniewski: 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 for the company to maximize long-term shareholder value. The market pull for our network—the one we are deploying today, a global, resilient space-based cellular broadband network with dual-use capabilities—remains extremely strong. Against this backdrop, we have recently signed additional mobile network operator contracts and received additional U.S. government awards.

First, we announced an agreement with TELUS as our second partner in Canada, who also made an equity investment in AST SpaceMobile, Inc. 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 have 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. 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 national 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 could 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 have made significant progress expanding our organizational capabilities through AST SpaceMobile, Inc.’s wholly owned government and defense subsidiary. 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 million 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. 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, of which we 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 BlueBird 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 2 Commercial Solutions program under HALO. This work is focused on delivering operationally relevant tactical communications capabilities directly to government end devices. We also advanced our communications efforts with milestones against contracts where Fairwinds is the prime contractor, some of which are follow-ons related to our previously demonstrated NTN tactical SATCOM capabilities. That field test showcased real-time connectivity to a Tactical Assault Kit over a VPN, multimedia streaming via the Tactical Assault Kit, and secure multiparty video calls, all executed on standard, unmodified smartphones, with active participation from U.S.

INDOPACOM 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-communication on-orbit testing and capability development. The progress we are seeing across both commercial and government activities supports our confidence in reiterating our 2026 revenue guidance of $150 million to $200 million. This outlook is supported by our existing contracted pipeline, with additional upside potential from new government awards. What we are seeing in 2026 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 billion, 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. 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 am now happy to pass the call over to Andy to walk through our financial update.

Andrew Martin Johnson: Thanks, Scott, and good afternoon, everyone. During 2026, we began executing against our annual revenue plan, we continued our manufacturing expansion across our growing facilities in Texas and beyond, and, importantly, as discussed on our 2025 year-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. 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 million to $200 million. With respect to manufacturing, we continue progress toward the achievement of our goals to support our actively 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 2026.

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 SpaceMobile 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 in the United States, reducing our higher-interest debt, and pursuing opportunistic investments to accelerate our SpaceMobile services and capabilities. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. is proud to be the creator and leader in the direct-to-device industry; we continue making investments to move quickly and responsibly to bring space-based cellular broadband connectivity directly to unmodified smartphones.

Our intentional focus on investing in operational growth led to higher adjusted operating expenses in 2026 consistent with our expectations previously communicated during our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. Moving to the operating and capital metrics slide, let us review the key metrics for the first quarter in more detail. For 2026, we incurred non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses of $91.2 million versus $95.7 million in 2025. As a reminder, non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses exclude non-cash operating costs, including depreciation and amortization and stock-based compensation.

The quarter-over-quarter decrease of $4.5 million resulted primarily from a $17.6 million decrease in adjusted cost of revenues due to lower revenue in the quarter, together with a $1.9 million decrease in R&D costs, partially offset by a $9.2 million increase in adjusted engineering costs and a $5.8 million increase in adjusted general and administrative costs. Our Q1 2026 adjusted operating expenses excluding adjusted cost of revenues were $79.8 million compared to $66.8 million in 2025, which is within the $70 million to $80 million guidance for adjusted operating expenses previously provided.

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 to capital expenditures, for 2026 we incurred approximately $257 million versus approximately $407 million for 2025. This figure was made up primarily of capitalized direct materials and labor for our Block 2 BlueBird satellites, with the balance relating to facility and production equipment expenditures.

This amount was below the quarterly guidance of $350 million to $425 million 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. For 2026, we estimate that our adjusted operating expenses, excluding adjusted cost of revenues, will increase to the range of approximately $85 million to $95 million as we further absorb the full-quarter cost of our recently expanded workforce and continue growing talent across our organization to scale our efforts to design, manufacture, launch, and operate our growing satellite constellation as well as pursue the monetization of our L- and S-band spectrum usage rights.

We expect our capital expenditures to increase in 2026 to a range of $575 million to $650 million, primarily driven by the timing of launch payments related to our near-term launches which, as I previously explained, vary from quarter to quarter. 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 cost, including direct materials and launch costs, for our constellation of over 90 Block 2 BlueBird satellites will fall in the range of $21 million to $23 million per satellite, excluding certain initial satellites that are used to validate performance and operations. 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 $14.7 million, primarily driven by commercial gateway deliveries and various U.S. government service milestone achievements. Our revenue declined during the first quarter 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 the United States, Europe, Japan, and other strategic markets with the launch and operation of 45 to 60 BlueBird satellites, and additional strategic worldwide markets with the launch and operation of approximately 90 BlueBird satellites.

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 2025 earnings call, we expect to generate full year 2026 revenue in the range of $150 million to $200 million. 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.

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 would like to remind you that we believe that approximately half of our 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 to several contingencies, including the successful launch and deployment of Block 2 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. Finally, our cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash as of 03/31/2026 were approximately $3.5 billion, inclusive of cash raised in February via the convertible notes offering with a 2.25% ten-year coupon at an effective strike price of $116.30 per share.

Our balance sheet continues to provide us with 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. In closing, we are off to a solid start to the year at AST SpaceMobile, Inc. and, critically, our 2026 objectives fully remain in place. With full recognition of the 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 2026.

Thank you for your continued support as we continue the hard work of connecting the unconnected at AST SpaceMobile, Inc. And with that, this completes the presentation component of our business update call, and I will pass it back to Scott.

Scott Wisniewski: Thank you, Andy. Before we go to the queue of analyst questions, we would like to address a few of the questions submitted by our investors. Operator, could you please start us off with the first question?

Operator: Scott from Indiana asks, historically, guidance for Block 2 BlueBirds 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?

Abel Avellan: Thank you, Scott, for the question. This morning, we announced that, from the middle of nowhere in the middle of the ocean, over international waters, we achieved peak data rates very close to 100 megabits per second to standard devices without any modification to the device, neither requiring any firmware or software upgrade to the device. This is using the device as it is today. With the BB-6, which is already in orbit, and BB-8, 9, and 10, we expect to nearly double that capacity.

In addition, AI features that we will implement into the satellites, along with large blocks of spectrum that we will 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 a complete change of what is possible, far ahead of any other technology that is attempting to enter the market.

Operator: Andres from New York asked, you have repeatedly emphasized that you are in a race against yourself in the field of D2D broadband technology. Given the increasing attempts by other companies to enter the market, is this still true? And what lead do you currently see over your competitors? What role do your patents play in keeping the competition at bay?

Abel Avellan: Thank you, Andres. That is a great question. From the very beginning, we have focused on delivering cellular broadband. For that you need a very large array, you need spectrum, and you need the ability to integrate that with partner MNOs. On that end, we have a very unique position. We have access through our MNO partners to around 3 billion subscribers. We are delivering broadband capacity provided, obviously, there is enough spectrum attached to the satellites. Today, with in-orbit satellites, as I said earlier, we are already in the hundreds of megabits. We plan to nearly double that as we continue to activate 8, 9, and 10 as we launch in the next few weeks.

When you put in perspective that you combine a very, very large satellite array with significant blocks of spectrum that are a combination between IMT MNO partner-provided spectrum with our own MSS, we have access to more spectrum than anybody else. We believe that, as of today, we are the only technology that has space-based cellular broadband capability, given the size and our architecture and the 3,900 patent and patent-pending claims that we have around our technology.

Operator: Ben from Virginia asked, 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?

Abel Avellan: Thank you, Ben, for the question. The way that we stack the satellites is like tuna cans where you put three of them, one on top of another, on the Falcon 9; up to eight of them on the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket; or up to five of them in Vulcan. We have over 1,000 people dedicated to build these composite structures all across our satellites. We are also extending, automating, and robotizing how we do these structures in Midland. All of this is to achieve and keep our six fully assembled satellites per month cadence, where the composite structure is a very, very important aspect of what we needed to do. We are fully vertically integrated.

We own IP. We control the manufacturing of everything on our satellites—95% of the bill of materials—from the composite structures (you can see in the pictures of manufacturing they turned from aluminum structures to composites where they look black) down to our ASIC, and the supply chain of how we build and produce our satellites.

Operator: Scott from Indiana also asked, any perspective you can share on progress made related to Golden Dome, HALO, Europa, or other government contracts?

Scott Wisniewski: I will take that one. As I said in my remarks, 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 billion, which was by far the largest, and there was a heavy emphasis on space activities. So it is a good environment for our capability to be maturing. We have been doing a lot of both communications and non-communications with the agencies who are the big buyers right now of space capabilities. We have the right backdrop and the right capability.

Remember, we are currently deploying the largest ever phased arrays in low Earth orbit, and that gives us an unprecedented capability to go to regular small, low-profile handsets as well as do radar capabilities. Looking at awards and budgets over the last three to six months, there has been a strong uptick as expected in the Space Force budget and in allocations related to Golden Dome. Specifically, we are in a stage now where RFPs are being issued and awards are being made for key elements of Golden Dome that will relate to us, including space-based radar and others. This is a big moment for us.

You are going to see some revenue coming in through U.S. government that will be a big contributor to our 2026 revenue. And for 2027, those awards we will receive or expect to receive over the next six months are going to be very significant for that effort. And with that, I would like to thank our shareholders for submitting those questions. Operator, let us open up the call to analyst questions now.

Operator: We will now be conducting a question and answer session. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star-2 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 Schoell with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Christopher Joseph Schoell: Great. Thank you for taking the questions. Now that you have had a few weeks to digest, can you just walk us through what happened with BlueBird 7 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 we see you rely upon them this year? Is this more a consideration for 2027 and beyond? Thank you.

Scott Wisniewski: Hey, Chris. I will dive in. We were pretty open on BlueBird 7 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 through 33 satellites in advanced stage of production at the factory. So while it was a loss, we are on to the next. We are working closely with Blue. They are working through the investigation. An upper-stage anomaly like this is not uncommon early in programs, and we feel optimistic about them getting back to the pad soon.

When you look at their cadence for the year, 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. We think the outlook there looks good, and we are optimistic. On the second part of the question, we have mentioned that we have contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin and others. We are also doing some integration activities with others to get ready for potential launches. We designed the business strategy to be launch-vehicle agnostic, and we are buyers of launch across the entire heavy launcher footprint. We prepared for this years ago with our strategy.

We think we selected the right partners, and we have good partners on top of that we are working with.

Christopher Joseph Schoell: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Scott Searle with Werroth Capital Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Scott Wallace Searle: Hey. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just a quick follow-up. Is there a timeline associated with the FAA 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 thinking about in terms of the ground station number that we should be expecting by the end of calendar 2026?

Scott Wisniewski: Hey, Scott. To the first part of the question on Blue, no, there has not been a publicly disclosed timeline. But these sorts of investigations are pretty commonplace, and there has been some good track record recently with other launchers that have had similar issues. We are really focused on our next launch with Falcon 9 and the next three BlueBirds, but, as I said, we are optimistic with Blue Origin. We will be in a good position there. As you know, we have a multi-launcher strategy. That has been the strategy from the get-go. On the number of MNOs live at launch, it is a global network.

We provided more disclosure today about regions and countries we are focused on. Where we are currently doing ground integration efforts—which are quite advanced in the United States and other countries in Europe—and some others that are getting started, it is a pipeline. There are a lot of countries to focus on. Just on the countries listed in our deck, you see a population coverage of about 2.9 billion. In terms of prioritization, you have heard from us before: key markets like the U.S., Canada, UK, Japan, Saudi Arabia.

We are looking at that list, and it is growing every day, and we wanted to give a little more incremental detail today in our deck and in our remarks on the countries we are focused on.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Michael Funk with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Funk: Yes, great. Thank you for the question. I want to go back to the launch target. I think you talked last quarter about stacking up to eight satellites per launch. What are the hurdles or authorizations required to get to the eighth? And then, Abel, earlier in the call, you mentioned deploying AI edge computing features in the next generation of satellites. Can we get a better understanding of how that is going to improve the efficiency or performance of next-generation satellites?

Abel Avellan: Let me answer the first question. As I explained earlier in the call, we have the technology and we are manufacturing at rate the technology to be able to stack multiple satellites in a single launch. On New Glenn, we can stack up to eight. On Vulcan, we can stack up to five. And on Falcon 9, we can stack up to three. This is a self-contained structure with full composites manufactured under our IP. We are also growing. We have over a thousand people dedicated to build these structures.

They are very difficult to build and test, but we are now very close to getting six of them every month and being able to stack with each of the different launch partners. To your second question about AI, we are not in the hyperscaler systems-in-space play. 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 onboard that can be very efficiently integrated also to the UEs for a variety of uses around AI. A key use relates to AI spectrum management. You have resources to dynamically administer power and spectrum.

We can tune within 1,100 megahertz of spectrum, and we have blocks of spectrum with our MNO partners—IMT spectrum—that we can tune country by country, location by location, plus our MSS. The AI spectrum management is a system behind all of that predicts traffic, predicts location, predicts where people are, and then allocates very intelligently. Remember, on a satellite, you have roughly 2,800 square kilometers of view of what is going on underneath you, and AI has the ability to predict where the traffic will be as the satellites move and dynamically allocate resources into the satellite—typically power or spectrum.

The end result is that the perceived user experience of how much spectrum is used and how efficient it is becomes a multiple. You can play with the whole field of view and allocate dynamically the spectrum square kilometer by square kilometer.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mike Crawford with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Mike Crawford: Thank you. Just to clarify, with the AST-5000 ASIC, that has been expected to enable 120 megabit per second peak data speeds, but is it the AI spectrum management that gets you up closer to 200 megabits per second by year end? Then also, on the non-communications capabilities that you are developing in conjunction with SDA, would we be correct in assuming we are talking about mid-band military radars—so something that we are not going to see on the initial BlueBirds launching now, but once you incorporate L-band and, excuse me, S-band into the satellites?

Abel Avellan: Let me start with the defense capability. I will not be able to describe it in this forum. It is a non-communication capability that uses the same hardware that we use on our commercial satellites. That is in use today. As Scott mentioned, they are using it today and plan to extend drastically how they use it, and that is a non-communication application for defense purposes.

Scott Wisniewski: Mike, it is important to note that does not require mid-band spectrum. That is something we can do with low-band spectrum we are deploying, which we have deployed today.

Abel Avellan: Correct. As it relates to the ASIC, the ASIC is complete. It has been incorporated into the production line. The ASIC allows us to upgrade the amount of bandwidth we can manage per satellite. On the FPGA satellites, we had around 1 gigahertz of spectrum; with the ASIC satellites, we have 10 gigahertz of spectrum. So it is a factor-of-10 increase in number of gigahertz that can be constantly used per satellite. The peak data rates are actually not dependent on the FPGA or ASIC; that affects how many of those connections you can have simultaneously.

We do not rely on AI to get to the 100 megabits per second that we have on the FPGA satellites that are actually the smaller initial satellites, and we expect to double the 98 megabits per second that we have using the BB-6 which is already in orbit, and BB-8, 9, and 10 that we will launch here very quickly. That does not require the ASIC or the AI management and is pure peak data rate per cell.

The AI management is a way to intelligently distribute that big pipe of 10 gigahertz (or 1 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 slice of that 10 gigahertz where the traffic is needed, dynamically and proactively using our own AI agents.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Brian Kraft with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Bryan D. Kraft: Hi. Good afternoon. Apologies for the multipart, long question, but I had a few questions I wanted to ask you around launch. First, do you have contracted launch capacity to do an average of basically one launch per month from June through December? Because I think that is 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 do not know—this is the first time I think you have mentioned Vulcan—so I was wondering how much launch you were able to secure there and if that could fill that gap in. And it sounds like you have 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 for, say, a July launch? And then on the stacking, do you need to work your way up to the max of those ranges?

In other words, on the next New Glenn, can you go right to eight, or would you prefer to do three or four to make sure it goes smoothly and then five to six and then go to seven to eight? Or are you just going to fill these things up going forward?

Scott Wisniewski: Hey, Brian. We do have contracted launch capacity to meet our target for 2026. The way to think about it is basically a handful of Blue Origin launches and a handful of SpaceX-equivalent launches, and that is what gets us to approximately 45. We know that Blue Origin just suffered an anomaly, but we are optimistic about their return to the pad. The fact that they have two boosters is a massive support for the cadence that we have always expected and that we have contracted. That is how we think about the mix and how we get to that 45 number. On the manufacturing side, we have capacity to keep knocking out launches one after another.

You can see that on the page in the deck. Given where we are, we expect to have more satellites each month ready for launch, and we will, of course, update the public 30 to 60 to 90 days ahead of launch as those are down-selected and confirmed. On stacking, you pretty much captured it. We expect on the next New Glenn we will launch four satellites. Part of that is ramping into the stacking capability and also managing where they are in the program. We are very mature now in the three-stack, and we are going to be doing that very shortly, and the four-stack likely shortly thereafter.

Then six, seven, eight—that is how we get to our constellation size. That is why we have 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.

Bryan D. Kraft: That is very helpful, Scott. If I could just ask one follow-up. Where does ULA fit into that? You mentioned a handful of Blue and a 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.

Scott Wisniewski: Our strategy has always been to have many launch providers, and I would put ULA in that category. We have been developing other heavy launch providers for some time, and we will have more updates as appropriate. But right now, we plan to use Blue Origin and SpaceX and equivalents to the max.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

Louie Dipalma: Good afternoon, Abel, Scott, and Andy. What do you view as the impact of Amazon’s acquisition of Globalstar? Do you view any potential partnership opportunities with Amazon as they seem to be very much in the early stages of entering this industry?

Abel Avellan: That is a complicated transaction in the sense that capacity and capability is already on the phones through the iPhones, and we see the capability as an SOS emergency system. To provide broadband, you need to have hundreds of megahertz of spectrum allocated. In the case of that, you are talking about a very small fraction of that. We do not see that changing dramatically in the foreseeable future of what the capability is today, and we do not see any real change of the landscape for the next several years.

When you think about some of our partners and you combine their IMT 3GPP spectrum already on the phone that they are allocating to us, plus our 50 megahertz of spectrum in MSS either in the L-band and the S-band, you are talking about, in some cases with some partners, all the way up to 100 megahertz of allocated spectrum. Our focus is broadband. That broadband will come as we enable spectrum in a combination of our partners’ spectrum in low band and then later our mid-band/low-band spectrum in the L-band.

We see that as a completely different proposition and nowhere close to the capability we have technically to deliver hundreds of megabits directly to a phone from something that is flying at roughly 17,000 miles per hour, hundreds of kilometers above you. That competitive advantage and capability is unique, and that is what we make available to our MNO partners.

Louie Dipalma: 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 2 satellites when you and your partners launch the trials later this year?

Abel Avellan: Talking about peak and averages is tricky and also depends on what is transiting through the applications on the phone. That is why we tend to focus on peak. The peak data rate for our larger BB-6, which is in orbit, and BB-8, 9, and 10 is approximately double what we disclosed this morning—so closer to 200 megabits per second. That is peak. The average depends on what you are transiting—small packets or large packets—and how you interact. But, in terms of network capacity, it is pretty much around double what we disclosed this morning.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chris Quilty with Quilty Space. Please proceed with your question.

Christopher David Quilty: Thanks, guys. I just wanted to do a quick follow-up on the non-communications satellite effort on the defense side. Since your satellites were specifically designed as a communication platform, does that imply that you are going to have to do large redesigns of satellites and add things like optical crosslinks and onboard processing and pointing mechanisms, and, if so, is that something that would be customer NRE-funded or something that you are putting the capital for?

Abel Avellan: Hey, Chris. We did not start working with our Department of Defense customers this year, not even last year. This has been many years in the making. All the capabilities that they require are already built into what we are producing on the line. There will be additions after their requests that I am not permitted to discuss, but the core capability of what they are using was incorporated many years back.

Christopher David Quilty: Speaking of government defense budgets, if the administration gets through this reconciliation package, there is 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 to be on the classified side?

Scott Wisniewski: It is a combination.

Abel Avellan: A lot are related, as the government has made public themselves, around the Golden Dome. But we are basically in all aspects of government usage. We are present from FirstNet to the classified, all the way to the Golden Dome, for communication and non-communication capabilities. We see ourselves as a very important multi-utility asset to our government. As I said, this has been years developing for them. They are using it today, and we expect very significant growth in revenue and opportunity in all aspects of government usage of our technology.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Greg Pendy with Clear Street. Please proceed with your question.

Gregory Pendy: 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 activation with service with MNOs?

Abel Avellan: We did it on the first satellite, and these satellites are the largest phased arrays ever deployed, so it took longer than it will take on the coming satellites. The target is 45 days. That is what we are planning with the MNOs. Every time that we launch, in 45 days we should be using either 5G or 4G connectivity through them. As we keep launching, we plan to reduce that timeframe from 45 days down to two weeks. We do not want to promise that in the early batches of satellites.

Gregory Pendy: Great. And then just one more. As you are looking at this multi-launch strategy and adding new launch partners, any thoughts if Neutron from Rocket Lab is available in 2027 on what type of capacity, and if that would be a potential other partner in the launch strategy?

Scott Wisniewski: We are not going to comment on other launch providers, but you have heard our commentary today about who we are looking at. We like launch providers. We like to launch with them. Our satellites are designed to fit in all the standard 5-meter fairings and larger ones as well. That is what we will say at this time.

Operator: 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.

Scott Wisniewski: 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.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.