SpaceX launched three BlueBird direct-to-cell satellites for asts from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:39 a.m. EDT on June 17, adding fresh hardware to AST SpaceMobile’s low Earth orbit constellation. The Falcon 9 mission sent BlueBird 8, BlueBird 9 and BlueBird 10 aloft from Florida’s Space Coast.
Scott Wisniewski said the launch was another milestone in advancing the company’s space-based cellular broadband network, and that each BlueBird satellite expands its ability to support seamless broadband mobile connectivity directly to everyday smartphones. For AST SpaceMobile, the flight adds three next-generation spacecraft after a stretch that included a lost satellite and a smaller fleet than the company wants to build.
Cape Canaveral Falcon 9 liftoff
Three satellites rode a Falcon 9 rocket off the pad at 2:39 a.m. EDT, with the first stage scheduled to come back down about 8.5 minutes after liftoff on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. The booster completed its 29th launch and landing on the mission, a measure of how heavily SpaceX is leaning on reused hardware to keep launch cadence high.
54.5 minutes after launch, the upper stage was scheduled to begin deploying the three BlueBird satellites over a 10.5-minute span. That timing matters to AST SpaceMobile because the spacecraft must separate cleanly and reach low Earth orbit before they can add capacity to the network it is trying to build.
BlueBird 8, 9 and 10
3 satellites from this flight quadrupled the number of next-generation BlueBird spacecraft in low Earth orbit, giving AST SpaceMobile a larger base of very large commercial communications arrays to work with. The new satellites carry antennas that cover nearly 2,400 square feet, or 223 square meters, when unfurled, compared with 693 square feet, or 64.4 square meters, on the original BlueBird satellites.
7 spacecraft had launched before the June 17 mission, but the company’s record has not been smooth. BlueBird 7 launched on April 19 on the third-ever flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket and was lost after being deployed in the wrong orbit following an anomaly.
Wisniewski’s June 9 warning
June 9 was the date Wisniewski put the launch in operational terms, saying, “Our upcoming launch marks another important milestone as we continue advancing the deployment of our space-based cellular broadband network,” and, “Each BlueBird satellite launched expands our ability to support seamless space-based broadband mobile connectivity directly to everyday smartphones.” Those lines frame the immediate task for AST SpaceMobile: getting more satellites into orbit and turning launches into usable coverage.
The next question for the company is whether the newly launched spacecraft deploy on schedule and stay in the right orbit, after BlueBird 7 was lost. If the deployment goes as planned, BlueBird 8, BlueBird 9 and BlueBird 10 will be the satellites that move AST SpaceMobile closer to a denser network, one launch at a time.
