$AST SpaceMobile(ASTS.US) Two days ago (July 15, 2026), AST SpaceMobile officially confirmed in its 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it would delay the large-scale deployment of its commercial services to early 2027.

This is a slight postponement of 3 to 6 months compared to the market's original expectation for commercial use by the end of 2026.

Core Reasons for Delay and Response Strategies

Rocket Launch Schedule Bottleneck: The company stated that the main reason for the delay lies in scheduling and supply constraints of third-party launch vehicles (particularly setbacks encountered by its launch partner Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket during previous ground tests).

Raising Capital to "Buy Priority": On the same day as the delay announcement, ASTS announced it would raise $1 billion through the issuance of convertible corporate bonds. This capital will be directly used to secure launch slots, ensure orbital capacity, and potentially acquire key supply chain vendors to eliminate external launch bottlenecks.

Latest Satellite Launch and Testing Progress

Although large-scale commercial operations are delayed, the production and launch of physical satellites continue steadily:

Recent Launch Dynamics: Last month (June 2026), the company successfully launched 3 BlueBird satellites into orbit via SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. Following this, another 3 BlueBird satellites are expected to be launched via Falcon 9 in the first half of August.

Testing and Commercial Planning:

By the end of 2026: The company expects to begin Beta testing experiences in certain regions before the end of this year.

Early 2027: The goal is to have a total of 45 BlueBird satellites in orbit by the first half of 2027, at which point full-scale commercial broadband services will officially commence.

Specification Progress: Factories are currently producing and assembling Block 2 specification BlueBird satellites at full speed (production scheduled up to BB 37). These satellites will feature ultra-large phased array antennas with an area of 2,400 square feet and integrate proprietary AST5000 ASIC chip architecture, aiming to provide transmission speeds of up to 120 Mbps directly to unmodified 4G/5G mobile phones.

**First Generation (Block 1)** BlueBird satellites have already achieved peak download speeds of up to 98.9 Mbps (close to 100 Mbps) in actual orbital tests.

Second Generation (Block 2) satellites (equipped with the new AST5000 ASIC chips) are expected by officials to double their peak speeds to nearly 200 Mbps when combined with more spectrum resources.

Under non-limiting normal single-beam configurations, the basic peak speed specification for Block 2 is designed at 120 Mbps. Regardless of which metric is considered, the transmission speed of Block 2 indeed represents nearly a two-fold increase compared to Block 1.