The FCC Gave AST SpaceMobile Permission to Compete. Its Network Does Not Exist Yet.
The FCC cleared AST SpaceMobile to compete with Starlink Mobile in the US. Three days earlier, the rocket meant to build its network fell short of orbit and is now deorbiting.
The FCC told AST SpaceMobile it can compete. The company just needs to build the thing it was cleared to run.
The commission authorized AST's full 248-satellite constellation for direct-to-smartphone broadband on April 21, according to the FCC order, a regulatory milestone that puts the company alongside Starlink Mobile as a licensed US provider of voice, video, and 5G to standard handsets without needing special equipment. Three days earlier, the rocket AST had booked to start building that network put its payload in the wrong orbit and watched it fall back into the atmosphere.
That rocket was Blue Origin's New Glenn, the third flight of a vehicle that had successfully landed its booster twice. Blue Origin confirmed on April 20 that one of the BE-3U upper-stage engines did not produce sufficient thrust during the second burn, leaving the BlueBird-7 satellite too low to sustain operations with its own thrusters. The spacecraft is deorbiting. The company expects to recover the loss under insurance.
New Glenn is now grounded pending an FAA mishap investigation, which is standard procedure after a launch anomaly. That leaves AST with a problem that regulatory approval cannot solve: it has seven spacecraft in orbit, and it needs 45 to 60 to provide continuous coverage across the United States.
The gap between what the FCC authorized and what AST can actually deliver is not a technical mystery. Block 2 BlueBird, the spacecraft version the company is currently manufacturing, weighs about 6,100 kilograms and carries a 223-square-meter phased array antenna, which AST says is the largest commercial communications array in low Earth orbit. Peak data rate per coverage cell is 120 Mbps to a standard smartphone, enabling voice, video, and 5G. That capability is real. The question is when it reaches enough customers to matter.
AST says it has SpaceX Falcon 9 and the Indian LVM3 as backup launchers under existing agreements. BlueBirds 8 through 10 are reportedly ready to ship in about 30 days, and the company says it still expects to average one to two launches per month through the rest of 2026, which would put roughly 45 satellites in orbit by year end. Those are the company's own projections, not independent assessments, and they assume the backup launchers are available on schedule, which is not guaranteed when you've just lost your primary vehicle for the year.
The AT&T and Verizon partnerships that make this commercially viable are real and locked in. The FCC authorization includes FirstNet public-safety spectrum, which gives AST a defensible position in a market that Amazon is trying to acquire its way into: the company announced an $11 billion-plus deal for Globalstar, the Apple partner already operating D2D-capable satellites. The competitive moat AST needed regulatory clearance to cross is real. The network to cross it does not exist yet.
The short version: AST won the race for FCC approval and lost the launch that would have made that approval count. The FCC gave the company the license on a Monday. The rocket that was supposed to begin filling the constellation failed the previous Thursday. If Falcon 9 or LVM3 can make up the difference on AST's stated timeline, this is a delay. If they cannot, it is something else. The answer arrives when the next launch does.
