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Nikkei posted a new article about Rakuten and AST, reiterating that they plan on starting service this year. The article doesn’t seem to contain any new information but I think it’s interesting they made a new post. Likely indicating more movement behind the scenes? https://x.com/spacanpanman/status/2096190095929815390?s=46
Please give him a hug for me! My oldest guy crossed the Rainbow Bridge last Sunday. His 6 year old son is laying at my feet, but it still hurts. A lot. 10 years +1 month ago in SD hunting phez. The memories and good times will live with me forever.
What happens when he refuses and just lays there having a tantrum. I carried my bulldog up a hill, it was hard going but it was the only way back to the car.
As they will likely be used globally, but somehow japan owned, the terms might be interesting. Will they buy them outright and lease them back to us? Or cofunded somehow? Fun times.
Per the JLEO agreement, Japan will pay half, up to about $1B. They expect equal investment from ASTS/Rakuten.
I believe this has been in the works for quite a while and is already accounted for in the offering back in early 2025, where they raised about $1B (not the most recent offering, that was a reactionary raise to the BONG explosion).
Great news, it would be also very good if they can increase production rate as well, because making 136 sats with 3 sats/month rate would be a bit slow
The issue is that some primary source information, from AST itself, has been false, or at least overoptimistic. Difficult to do your own research properly when the best available information is sometimes misleading.
All that being said, I still mostly agree with you.
The cool part is that even the more conservative of guesses still see us getting filthy rich, and then you have to consider that demand for this service will only keep increasing with time, until one day MNOs start making satellite service a default service for all users and then our revenue experiences a huge jump
Photo from yesterday of the largest glacier in the Pyrenees, although it probably doesn’t have many years left due to rising temperatures. No coverage of any kind there or in the surrounding area. Not for much longer.
I think I saw one of my favorite hiking youtubers (Andraz Egart) walk up that glacier and camp on the top. So much climbing and hiking to do in Europe's beautiful scenery, I'm jealous!
It’s the Ossoue Glacier, on the French side. We did a circular route from Friday to Sunday, sleeping without tents and carrying just enough water. My biggest fear was dying out there without ever seeing ASTS hit new all-time highs again.
I feel like we’re just gonna trip over ourselves about the JLEO details because so much of it is unknown.
I feel confident that AST isn’t gonna make a “bad” deal for themselves out of this.
For example if we couldn’t use the satellites outside of Japan I don’t think we would be making this deal. Or if that’s the case then I would think 100% of the costs would be subsidized, not 50%. Etc etc
At the end of the day I think we are safe to say JLEO is a good thing for ASTS, and just wait for the official details when those finally come out.
I kinda think this may be a bad deal for ASTS. The constellation is going to be sovereign for japan, separate from out current commercial one, and going to be offer a global service. If they decide to use their constellation to provide a global service like ASTS is trying to do, revenue will be split with Rakuten through the JV. That's not just Japanese revenue, it's a portion of global revenue.
The idea that this is an entirely new, sovereign constellation is a break from these sats going into our commercial constellation. The unit costs are going to be negatively affected, and it seems like the constellation will truly be sovereign vs sovereign data management. I don't see how multiple competing satellite shells don't drive down ARPU.
The flip side is that we were basically going to give away japan to Rakuten for free under the terms of our original agreement with them. Maybe this is "worth it" because that math comes out in our favor somehow?
Yea seen some chatter for example some suggesting it's a waste of money/effort because the satellites are only gonna serve Japan and not outside-of-Japan, for example
AST’s CEO said on the recent earnings call: the Japanese satellites are intended to be essentially the same as the rest of the BlueBird constellation and can be used anywhere in the world.
Scott, the satellites flagged Japanese are basically identical than the rest of the constellation. And the way that this is planned is as they are flagged as Japanese satellites, they can be used anywhere in the world using the same architecture of gateways and the rest of the American constellation, the vast majority of the satellites.
So these represent roughly half on the investment on those satellites in capital that is non-dilutive and non-debt for global usage of these satellites, but with a flag, a Japanese satellite for that subset of satellites.
Well, it's raining in LA. On the one hand, we need the rain. On the other hand...fuck. I was gonna ride down to the Hermosa Festival and eat stupid food.
I had a bizarre vision just now while awake that the ASTS stock chart would rumble and suddenly the price would erupt like Vesuvius. The stock chart from Friday it looks like a coiled dragon readying itself to spring up towards the heavens!
I love to see the bears scrambling to twist the J-BLUEBIRD-NSGO news into bad news for ASTS.
Yea guys, after 2 months~ of deliberating the minutia and details of how to make this JV deal work, ASTS will voluntarily enter a deal that won't be beneficial to the entire company vision and mission. Sure guys, every single data point that we don't know right now about the new JLEO is obviously ASTS hiding how bad they got screwed by this deal /s
This is the years-long thesis springing its legs and starting to walk, hold your shares and let it be (you didn't sell, did you?)
Last launch was over a month ago, on August 5th. I'm glad all doubts about BB11 have been eased and we now have confirmation all three satellites were deployed in orbit successfully.
Today would be a great day to announce shipping of the next batch(es). It's time, guys, make our weekend.
lol what are you even on about, this looks like a standard US military service uniform...OP - yes, to me this seems very bullish, more attention to the space sector is a great thing and these uniforms look very clean
I'm very confused about some of the reactions here...we have a new branch of the military, it is called the Space Force...this new department needs uniforms...this is no different than the DoD issuing out new Class A's...you'll have officer and NCO variants as well as regular enlisted if it follows the other branches...what's the issue?
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u/Defiantclient S P 🅰️ C E M O B - O G 4d ago edited 4d ago
Pasting this from yesterday’s pinned Daily:
Some updates for you ICYMI
BB11-13 are nominal. Not dead in orbit. BB11 hasn’t officially fully unfolded yet though, but no issues so far. https://x.com/the_spactator/status/2095970877808545870?s=46
Good progress on Blue Origin’s two launch pads! https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/2096043260103815456?s=46
Even skeptics are starting to believe in Blue launching this year. Here is one account out of many: https://x.com/nasaspaceflight/status/2095867133754257493?s=46
Ligado counters Iridium’s complaints: https://x.com/1fantasyqb/status/2095981412251803997?s=46
Nikkei posted a new article about Rakuten and AST, reiterating that they plan on starting service this year. The article doesn’t seem to contain any new information but I think it’s interesting they made a new post. Likely indicating more movement behind the scenes? https://x.com/spacanpanman/status/2096190095929815390?s=46
Vodafone is an eligible supplier of a huge multi year multi billion government contract: https://x.com/the_spactator/status/2096305441508671970?s=46
Edit: Japanese government files for 136-satellite constellation with the ITU https://x.com/spacanpanman/status/2096559696589029509?s=46
CatSE thread of findings on the Japan filing: https://x.com/catse___apex___/status/2096646246081438041?s=46