Transported by the World\u2019s Largest Cargo Aircraft<\/p>\n
The satellite reached the Chennai Airport in the Southern Indian city on Thursday morning in the world\u2019s largest cargo aircraft, a Ukrainian Antonov An-124. The Indian rocket port at Sriharikota is about 90km from Chennai.<\/p>\n
According to the ISRO official, completing the customs formalities, the satellite is expected to be moved to Sriharikota in the night when the traffic on the roads will be sparse.<\/p>\n
Launch Facilitated by India\u2019s NewSpace Arm<\/p>\n
It was Orbital Today which first reported that Indian rocket LVM3 will be orbiting AST Space Mobile\u2019s BlueBird 6. The launch contract was facilitated by NewSpace India Ltd, the commercial arm of India\u2019s Department of Space.<\/p>\n
BlueBird satellites span an unprecedented 2,400 square feet, more than 3x larger than the first five BlueBird satellites in orbit today,\u201d AST SpaceMobile had said earlier.<\/p>\n
A Record-Breaking Satellite Fleet<\/p>\n
According to AST SpaceMobile BlueBird 7 is expected to reach its launch site in October and BlueBirds 8-16 are in various stages of production with launches planned every 1-2 months on average during 2025 and 2026.<\/p>\n
The company had said it is on track to complete 40 phased arrays by early 2026 taking the total to 46 and expects 45-60 satellites in orbit by 2026 end.<\/p>\n
Towards a Space-Based Cellular Network<\/p>\n
In August 2025, AST SpaceMobile in its business update said that it is preparing to deploy nationwide intermittent service in the United States by the end of 2025, followed by the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada in Q1 2026.<\/p>\n
AST SpaceMobile says it is building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to offer broadband connectivity direct to mobile devices based on its intellectual property and patent portfolio. Also, AST SpaceMobile will be the second satellite broadband customer using\u00a0\u00a0India\u2019s LVM3 rocket. The first one was Eutelsat OneWeb, which launched a total of 72 satellites with two LVM3 rockets in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n
Earlier the NSIL official had told Orbital Today that the BlueBird 6 launch was slated for May 2025. However it got delayed.<\/p>\n
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Published by Venkatachari Jagannathan\u00a0<\/p>\n
V.Jagannathan (Byline Venkatachari Jagannathan), is a freelance journalist based in Chennai, India covering the country\u2019s space, nuclear, insurance, automobile and several other industries. Jagannathan was with IANS newswire, one of India\u2019s premier news agencies and his articles \u2013 news, news analysis, interviews, profiles and others- on various sectors were published in several leading print, online publications within and outside India. He was also with India\u2019s first online business magazine www.domain-b.com. A school and college chess player Jagannathan also writes about Indian chess and has covered World Chess Championships, Chess Olympiads and others.<\/p>\n