In this “Live in the Booth” interview during SATShow Week, AST SpaceMobile President and Chief Strategy Officer Scott Wisniewski talks about the recently launched BlueBird 6 satellite, the company’s recent agreement with Orange, and AST SpaceMobile’s spectrum strategy. 

Wisniewski also talks about how AST SpaceMobile sees opportunity for its technology in the defense space. The company recently won the first Space Development Agency (SDA) award for the Europa effort to demonstrate low-latency tactical satellite communications using the company’s commercial spacecraft. While the company’s direct-to-device business is designed around the commercial application and partnership with mobile network operators, Wisniewski believes defense could be a billion-dollar business over the long term. 

“The defense market has made a lot of sense over the last couple of years as we’ve deployed network and they’ve seen what this kind of brand new architecture can do. When you have a large array in Low Earth Orbit, it facilitates a number of communications and non communications use cases,” Wisniewski said. “The vision that we’ve painted is one where we have up to 10 different use cases of communications and non-communications, each of which could be a future program of record for the U.S. government.” 

Via Satellite editors Rachel Jewett and Mark Holmes interviewed Wisniewski as part of the “Live in the Booth” series during SATShow Week on March 24.