Viasat Confirms AST Payment, Expects Flight 2 Satellite Launch This Week

After Viasat confirmed last week that it had received $436 million in cash in an initial payment from AST SpaceMobile as part of the latter's Ligado spectrum transaction, AST could potentially strike similar arrangements to lease spectrum in markets outside the U.S., William Blair's Louie DiPalma wrote investors Monday. In a call with analysts Friday, Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg also said United Launch Alliance anticipates putting up the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 satellite at the end of this week. Getting it and Flight 3 into service will be a big step for Viasat, he said, as each will enable more bandwidth capacity than Viasat's entire existing fleet.