Texas startup AST SpaceMobile launched BlueBird 6, the first of its next-generation satellites, this week—and boy was it a big one. BlueBird 6 is roughly three times larger than its predecessors and the biggest commercial satellite in Earth orbit.

BlueBird 6 lifted off on board India’s LVM3 rocket on December 23 at 10:25 p.m. ET from the Satish Dhawan Space Center. The satellite is the first of AST SpaceMobile’s next-generation constellation, which aims to create the first space-based cellular broadband network directly accessible by cell phones.

With this week’s launch, the company is poised to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink in beaming connectivity from space.

Size does matter

AST SpaceMobile launched its first satellite, BlueWalker 3, in September 2022 to test its ability to establsih cellphone towers in space. A year later, the company used its prototype satellite to carry out the first 5G phone call from space to a regular Samsung Galaxy S22.

Since then, AST has launched five other satellites, named BlueBird, and it wants to send 243 more to orbit. Among all the commercial satellites littering Earth orbit, the BlueBirds are the largest. Once the prototype satellite unfurled its giant array in space, its brightness increased by about 2 magnitudes and it outshined most objects in the skies. Its tennis court-sized array stretched across 693 square feet (about 64 square meters) after the satellite was fully unfurled.

The next-generation BlueBird 6 is approximately three times larger than the previous iterations. Once it unfurls, the satellite’s array will stretch across 2,400 square feet (223 square meters), making it the largest satellite in space. 

AST says it’s planning on launching 45-60 more of its next-generation satellites by the end of 2026, which the company expects will allow it to offer5G data services across the United States and some other initial markets. Each satellite is designed to support 10 gigahertz of bandwidth and speeds of 120 megabytes per second per cellphone.

SpaceX has far more satellites in orbit, operating more than 9,000 satellites—currently around 60% of all satellites in orbit. AST’s BlueBirds, however, boast larger antennas. The Texas startup also has a slight advantage because it plans to offer direct-to-cell service that requires no additional hardware.

The two companies are locked in an industrial feud. Earlier in July, SpaceX sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission to raise concern that AST SpaceMobile poses a threat to the sustainability of low Earth orbit. AST has previously accused SpaceX of attempting to “intimidate and bully” its competitors after the Elon Musk-owned company sent a letter to the FCC last year claiming AST was spreading misinformation to try and hamper SpaceX’s work.

As both companies compete against each other, their satellites continue to fill up Earth’s orbit and block our views of the night skies.