AST SpaceMobile, which builds satellites meant to connect directly to ordinary phones, says it will develop its own rocket because it has struggled to find rides to orbit.
The rocket is called Blacklift. It is a medium-lift vehicle (a mid-sized launcher, bigger than the ones built for small satellites) designed to carry 20 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, the region closest to Earth where most satellite constellations operate. The company said commercial launches would begin in late 2028.
AST is a Texas-based, publicly traded company, and its satellites are very large. Large spacecraft narrow the list of rockets that can carry them, which plausibly explains some of the trouble. The company's founder, chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan, put it in marketing terms in a news release. Blacklift is "the springboard to significantly expand our total addressable market," he said, adding that it would provide "regular unconstrained access to orbit" and "most favorable owner's economics in the industry." Those are the company's claims, not results.
The move follows a pattern set by SpaceX, which launches its own Starlink satellites on its own Falcon 9 rockets and so controls its own schedule. AST is aiming for a similar arrangement, though it would start from a later position: Blacklift is an announced program with a late 2028 target, not a vehicle with a flight record.
That gap defines the bet. Until Blacklift flies, AST remains a customer of other companies' rockets, which is the position it is trying to leave.