AST SpaceMobile to launch space-based cellular network this year AST SpaceMobile has been given an experimental licence from the FCC to test its BlueWalker 3 satellite, aiming to deploy a space-based cellular broadband network compatible with standard smartphones. The FCC licence grants AST permission to test the satellite, but not yet to operate commercially as a carrier. If the test is successful though, AST will go online initially with just 20 satellites, expanding to a full complement of 110 during the rest of 2022 and 2023 to provide global broadband coverage. CEO and chairman Abel Avellan described BlueWalker 3 as a “693-square-foot phased array designed to communicate directly with unmodified mobile phones from low earth orbit”. …