AST SpaceMobile, together with AT&T, has successfully launched its first five commercial satellites, called BlueBirds. The historic launch occurred at 4:52 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and was witnessed by partners and retail shareholders from around the globe who gathered for this significant milestone.
These large arrays of antennas are designed to provide cellular broadband speeds for voice, data, video, and other non-communications government applications directly to standard smartphones. Following the launch, the BlueBird satellites are planned to offer non-continuous cellular broadband service across the United States and in select international markets. AT&T is working with AST SpaceMobile to one day offer voice, data, text and video services in remote, off-grid locations with standard smartphone.
The BlueBird satellites’ beams are designed to support a capacity of up to 40 MHz, enabling peak data transmission speeds of up to 120 Mbps. They aim to achieve approximately 100% nationwide coverage from space with over 5,600 coverage cells in the United States.
Jeff McElfresh, Chief Operating Officer, AT&T
This is an exciting next step to a future where our customers will only be hard to reach if they choose to be – giving them the power to go anywhere and the possibility to do anything while staying connected with just an everyday cell phone. This moment has been several years in the making, and I am proud of our teams’ work, in collaboration with AST SpaceMobile, to help make space-based connectivity a reality.
Mickey Mikitani, Chairman and CEO, Rakuten Group
Today’s historic launch from Kennedy Space Center marks the next step in our shared mission of democratizing telecommunications. Mobile connectivity is a necessity no matter where you are. We are proud to be working with a trailblazer like AST SpaceMobile to create a more connected world.