24 December 2025 – AST SpaceMobile, the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by everyday smartphones, designed for both commercial and government applications, today announced the successful orbital launch of BlueBird 6. The BlueBird 6 mission lifted off at 10:25 p.m. EST on December 23 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. BlueBird 6 becomes now the largest commercial communications array ever deployed in low Earth orbit, spanning nearly 2,400 square feet, three times larger than AST SpaceMobile’s previous record-breaking BlueBirds 1-5, engineered to deliver commercial and government applications, including high-speed 4G and 5G space-based cellular broadband directly to standard, unmodified smartphones, and government applications that benefit from the power, size, and patented technology of AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird spacecrafts. Read more