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This weekend\u2019s scheduled Blue Origin rocket launch is rather momentous. Success would signal an end to SpaceX\u2019s monopoly on reusable orbital launch vehicles, and set up a three-way race to make that \u201cNo Service\u201d indicator on your phone disappear forever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
On Sunday morning, Jeff Bezos\u2019 massive New Glenn rocket is scheduled to launch with the first-stage booster that launched and landed on the program\u2019s second mission last November. It\u2019s a critical test, because cost-effective booster reuse is what\u2019s made SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 so dominant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Amazon desperately needs a reusable rocket of its own to accelerate its Leo launches. Without one, it\u2019s only been able to launch 241 Leo satellites, putting it well behind schedule. In that same 12-month time period, SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket was able to deploy over 1,500 satellites to its Starlink constellation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sunday\u2019s mission will carry AST SpaceMobile\u2019s BlueBird 7 satellite to low Earth orbit. Instead of blanketing the region with thousands of small satellites like Amazon and SpaceX, AST\u2019s plan is to deploy fewer satellites that are much more powerful. Bluebird 7 features a massive 2,400-square-foot phased-array antenna, making it the largest commercial communications array ever deployed in low Earth orbit. It\u2019s essentially a cell tower in space, and will be the second of the company\u2019s \u201cBlock 2\u201d next-generation satellites to launch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The BlueBird 7 is designed to provide 4G and 5G broadband, at speeds exceeding 120 Mbps, to the phones we already carry. AST plans to have 45 to 60 satellites launched by the end of 2026<\/a>. When AST lights up its service sometime this year, it will be in direct competition with Starlink\u2019s direct-to-cell service, already operating with T-Mobile in the US, and Globalstar, the satellite network snapped up by Amazon that keeps iPhones and Apple Watches communicating in dead zones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This weekend\u2019s scheduled Blue Origin rocket launch is rather momentous. Success would signal an end to SpaceX\u2019s monopoly on reusable orbital launch vehicles, and set up a three-way race to make that \u201cNo Service\u201d indicator on your phone disappear forever. On Sunday morning, Jeff Bezos\u2019 massive New Glenn rocket is scheduled to launch with the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/A-giant-cell-tower-is-going-to-space-this-weekend.webp.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27978,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27976\/revisions\/27978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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