Can an Extended Manufacturing Footprint Benefit AST SpaceMobile?

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. ASTS has added two new manufacturing sites in Texas and Florida in a concerted bid to expand its operations in the country. In addition to reinforcing its commitment to accelerate innovation in space technology on American soil, the initiative is likely to boost the GDP by generating employment opportunities for local talent. AST SpaceMobile has reportedly doubled its U.S. workforce in the past six months, employing about 1,800 professionals across the country.

The newly added site in Midland, TX, will manufacture BlueBird satellites from raw materials through finished spacecraft. This is the fifth production facility in Texas, which is its primary manufacturing hub. The other newly added facility in Homestead, FL, further expanded its production capacity, supported by 3,800 U.S. patents and patent-pending claims. 

AST SpaceMobile is set to launch its next generation of commercial Block 2 BlueBird satellites, featuring communication arrays of up to 2,400 square feet. This will be the largest deployment in LEO (Low-Earth Orbit) for commercial use. Management believes the larger aperture array will enable greater spectrum reuse, enhanced signal strength and increased capacity, reducing the number of satellites required to achieve service coverage compared to smaller aperture designs. The new BlueBird satellites are expected to deliver up to 10 times the bandwidth capacity of its earlier counterparts in orbit today, facilitating peak data transmission speeds of up to 120 Mbps.

How are Competitors Faring?

AST SpaceMobile faces competition from Viasat, Inc. VSAT and Iridium Communications Inc. IRDM in the satellite communication space. Iridium operates one of the largest commercial constellations with a mesh architecture of 66 operational LEO satellites. It offers dedicated commercial global voice and data communications services to both businesses and governments in the United States as well as globally. Iridium has been making solid investments to boost its technology infrastructure. It aims to launch satellite services for Direct-to-Device and satellite-based personal communication devices.

Viasat is ramping up investments in the development of its revolutionary ViaSat-3 broadband communications platform, which will have nearly 10 times the bandwidth capacity of ViaSat-2. The ViaSat-3 platform will help to form a global broadband network with sufficient network capacity to allow better consumer choices with an affordable, high-quality, high-speed Internet and video streaming service. Viasat can become a credible challenger for ASTS in the satellite connectivity space in India’s market. In late 2024, Viasat collaborated with BSNL, a telecommunication service provider in India, to successfully demonstrate direct-to-device satellite services.

ASTS’ Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

AST SpaceMobile has gained 138.4% over the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 12.7%

From a valuation standpoint, AST SpaceMobile trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 84.39, well above the industry.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AST SpaceMobile’s earnings for 2025 has moved southward over the past 60 days.
 

AST SpaceMobile currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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