Ry🅰️n O'Connor

$ASTS: This story is making the rounds so I am going to address it: floridatoday.com/story/tech/… On October 21, SpaceX VP Kiko Dontchev stated that SpaceX has a 6 week gap before the next Falcon 9 launch out of Florida, reason being for prep for Starship's debut in Florida. The 6 week gap aligns with Ben Cooper's manifest noting a "late November" launch for the Northrop Grumman Cygnus NG-25 mission, so this should be the next F9 launch being referenced by Kiko Dontchev. What this means for @AST_SpaceMobile: + BB14-16 are at Astrotech integrating for launch, and will be ready to go as soon as SpaceX Falcon 9 can launch them probably in December. + Why did AST ship if they don't have a launch? In my view it's one or both of two reasons: (1) AST was blindsided by SpaceX's sudden pause and/or (2) AST shipped to make room at their factory + This 6 week gap explains AST's silence on launch date PR. Their hands are literally tied. + Note that this Falcon 9 pause is not unique-to-ASTS as it impacts all Falcon 9 launches out of Florida, although you could make an argument that AST's payload is really the only one being impacted by this pause. That being said, I don't know the status of other Falcon 9 payloads that may or may not be impacted. Prep for Starship is a good excuse/reason though but yes it is unfortunate that AST's launch is being impacted. + How AST manages the narrative from here will be key, whether they do it with an interim update now or wait for the Q3 earnings call on November 9. The best thing for us shareholders and sentiment would be if AST can signal that production is going well and batches are continuing to get done and stockpile for a more rapid launch cadence starting in December when Falcon 9 returns to operation in Florida. --> Note that if AST's production is going well in the background, then I think this pause from SpaceX helps explain the unusual gap between BB11-13 and BB14-16. And as mentioned in bullet 3 above, this explains the weird comms from AST surrounding BB14-16 batch. --> Astrotech should have plenty of room to accept more BlueBirds if we can ship another batch or two while we wait for SpaceX to resume F9 operations in Florida. In adjacent/related news, our boots on the ground are reporting that more shipping containers are arriving in Midland soon, which is a positive sign for more shipments coming in the near term: nitter.cf/DanteePacheco/status/2…