"Phone towers in the sky" Three giant satellites prepare for a striking appearance over America

Three massive Blue Bird satellites are preparing to appear over the United States in successive displays that could make them easy targets for the naked eye, after deploying flat communications antennas, each measuring about 223 square meters, roughly the size of a tennis court.

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These satellites gain their importance from being designed to provide internet and communications directly to ordinary smartphones without the need to modify them, in a move that could extend the range of communication to areas not reached by terrestrial communication networks.

From a communications tower to a moving sky

The three satellites were launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and the rocket successfully completed its mission. After about eight and a half minutes, the first stage of the rocket returned to Earth and landed on a marine platform, marking its thirtieth launch and landing flight.

As for the upper stage of the rocket, it continued on its way to orbit and began deploying the three satellites about 53 minutes after takeoff. The deployment process took about 11 minutes.

These satellites belong to the new generation of "Blue Bird" that began with the "Blue Bird 6" satellite, which was launched in December 2025. The new generation's antennas, when opened, cover about 223 square meters, compared to about 64.4 square meters for the first satellites of the constellation, making them about 3.5 times larger in terms of antenna area.

Ordinary phones make calls from space

The importance of the new satellites is not limited to their size; they are part of a project aimed at providing direct-to-cell telephone service, so that an ordinary smartphone can receive the service directly from the satellite.

According to the company, the new generation satellites are expected to provide maximum download speeds nearly double those achieved by the first generation satellites, which recently reached 98.9 megabits per second directly to standard smartphones.

AST Space Mobile President Scott Wisniewski said the launch, along with increased manufacturing capacity and recent successes in launching and deploying previous satellites, puts the company in a position to begin pilot services later in 2026, expanding cellular broadband coverage from space.