The Great Space Phone Race

ABEL AVELLAN is taking on SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Project Kuiper in the battle to provide broadband satellite internet directly to your smartphone.

- Alex Knapp

Last September, a crowd of seasoned spectators gathered at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to watch as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket took flight for the 373rd time. But it wasn't carrying yet another of Elon Musk's Starlink satellites to join the 7,100-plus he has already circling Earth. Onboard instead were five satellites from AST SpaceMobile, a tiny Starlink rival that SpaceX has derided as a "meme stock" in regulatory filings with the federal government. Each was equipped with a 700-square-foot antenna that would unfold in orbit, an early step in establishing a network AST hopes will someday best the incumbent mocking it.

The size of these antennas—and the even larger 2,400-square-foot version that will succeed them—are key to CEO and founder Abel Avellan’s plan to win a new market: satellite internet beamed directly to your phone. In contrast to SpaceX, which uses thousands of satellites to connect residences, businesses, vehicles and even the White House to the internet, AST’s super-large antennas should give it global coverage with just 90 satellites. The company plans to launch 60 into orbit by the end of 2026.

The goal is to keep cellphones connected when out of range of a tower. You'd be able to make calls even when hiking in a remote area or froma boat miles offshore. Until recently, that required expensive satellite phones with special hardware. “Our vision is to provide connectivity without disadvantage to wherever people are located,” says Avellan, 54.