The Satellites the Size of a Studio Apartment
AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird constellation is a bet that raw aperture size wins. Each satellite unfolds a 64-square-meter phased-array antenna in orbit, the largest commercial antenna ever deployed. The company claims a stock smartphone on the ground can connect directly to it. The competition says the physics doesn't support that. Seventeen satellites in and a contract with AT&T, Verizon, and Vodafone, somebody's math is wrong.