As Elon Musk sorta said, "boring is good."

That's a bit of a reach, what Musk actually said was more like, "I'll know we've been successful when watching launches becomes boring."  

I'm going to get there because this piece is really about how SpaceX launched three BlueBird satellites for AST SpaceMobile at 2:39 a.m. EDT (0639 UTC) on Wednesday, June 17th. We've reported on BlueBird satellites a few times and I have to confess to being interested in these satellites because of having designed receivers for things like the BlueBird downlinks. They're interesting because the satellites aren't designed for large antennas on each receiver, they're for direct to cellphone coverage. I'd hazard a guess that a large percentage of cellphone users don't even know they have an antenna. The necessary large antennas are on the satellites. Like close to 2400 square feet. While not actually square in shape, for reference, that would be a square almost 49 feet on a side.

An artist's concept of a giant AST SpaceMobile BlueBird mobile broadband satellite for smartphone connectivity. (Image credit: AST SpaceMobile)

The side story is bigger than that, though. See, SpaceX launched BlueBird 8, 9, and 10 on one SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. So what happened to BlueBird's 1 through 7? 

BlueBird 7 was the payload on a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket from the Cape. While the company was able to recover its first stage booster, ‘Never Tell Me the Odds,’ the New Glenn suffered an upper stage anomaly and was unable to deliver the satellite to the intended orbit. Then, 'Never Tell Me the Odds" was the Blue Origin launch vehicle that blew up on the launch pad at the end of May. That was on the 28th - three weeks ago as I type. 

Prior to this launch, the company deployed its BlueWalker 3 test satellite and five, Block 1 BlueBird satellites on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets in Sept. 2022 and Sept. 2024 respectively. The first Block 2 satellites, BlueBird 6, launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted AST SpaceMobile the ability to deploy 248 of its satellites into low Earth orbit.

That is, they're allowed to deploy 248 satellites if they can actually get them in orbit reliably.

SpaceX Falcon 9, tail number B1077, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to begin the BlueBird 8-10 mission for AST SpaceMobile on June 17, 2026, as seen from the sands of Cocoa Beach, Florida. This was the 29th mission for Booster 1077 Image: Michael Cain, Spaceflight Now