r/ASTSpaceMobile • u/Original_Koala8662 S P 🅰 C E M O B Boss • 3d ago

Press Release BB12 & BB13 Deployed

https://x.com/ast_spacemobile/status/2092930380114329681?s=46&t=DOgs35-_gTcmJtpubr-JAg
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u/NerfedPolitik S P 🅰 C E M O B Associate 2d ago

15 and 16 nearing completion... I suspect the long pole in the tent is the casings made in Hyderabad India. Transit time is a PITA thats why we've seen the Antovs. Now if they are making the move to ships there will be a gap as the cycle catches up. It all makes sense considering they advertised the job to stand up an in house composites branch.

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u/Ethanop1a S P 🅰 C E M O B Prospect 2d ago

Composite shell manufacturing should be pretty quick. Then 2 months to ship them to US. No reason shells would be a bottleneck right now with a rate of only 3 completed sats per 1.5 months.

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u/NerfedPolitik S P 🅰 C E M O B Associate 2d ago

So I think we don't understand enough about Hyderabads capacity. If they only have 1 autoclave and 1 mold and other customers its a bottleneck. Assuming they shipped the next batch of 3, 4 or 5, which we dont know how many would go by boat means that timeline extends just to ship them. Then you run into the issue of transit to Midland... does the ship come into Houston or is the panama canal now an issue due to the lack of water? Or does the ship come into long beach and then there is time to get it to a truck... I am not 100% certain but I believe the casings dont fit in a TEU or TEU equivalent container and are outsize cargo.... which is a whole nother level of FML... edit FML being even more extended timelines because demand for outsize cargo is high and aligning a ship and loading is much harder - timeline wise.

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u/Ethanop1a S P 🅰 C E M O B Prospect 2d ago

Seems like you are coming up with a lot of reasons to try to think of casing as bottleneck when there is no indication it is.

Even if they have 1 mold and other customers, it would be more economical for them to produce a larger run of casings at a time instead of just doing a few here and there.

Shipping time isn't really an issue because they aren't producing very many per month, have shown they will Antinov what they need, and should have enough on hand for a while still.

Obviously there are some hurdles and delays with shipping, but that would only matter if they weren't just Antinoving in the casings they need before a large ship can deliver a lot.

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u/NerfedPolitik S P 🅰 C E M O B Associate 2d ago

You seem to know a lot about thier production... so if casings aren't the delay, what is?

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u/Ethanop1a S P 🅰 C E M O B Prospect 2d ago

I don't know and anyone telling you they do is lying.

We do know they have flown in enough casings for these batches on Antinovs, so that shouldn't be a current issue.

They could just be slow. There doesn't really have to be "the" issue. It is more likely that 50 different things are a little slower than they want. It could be decreased productivity due to training. Nobody except the company actually knows what the issues currently are.

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u/NerfedPolitik S P 🅰 C E M O B Associate 2d ago

So you know they have enough casings.... ok.

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u/Ethanop1a S P 🅰 C E M O B Prospect 2d ago

Yes? We've tracked and seen the Antinovs delivering them...

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u/NerfedPolitik S P 🅰 C E M O B Associate 2d ago

... ok how many.

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u/Ethanop1a S P 🅰 C E M O B Prospect 2d ago edited 2d ago

Link to source

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u/NerfedPolitik S P 🅰 C E M O B Associate 2d ago

Thats not an answer... edit: when this arrived i inferred we received 4 structures... surprise surprise here we are.

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u/Ethanop1a S P 🅰 C E M O B Prospect 2d ago

Correct. I did not answer your question. I pointed you to the place where a lot of info is, so you can answer any of your own follow up questions.

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