Shares of AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) climbed 0.5% in premarket trading Wednesday after the company secured a new U.S. patent covering critical thermal-management technology inside its massive satellite antenna arrays.
The gain followed a 2% decline in Tuesday’s regular session, which left ASTS stock closing at $58.77 per share.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the patent to AST’s subsidiary, AST & Science, with CEO Abel Avellan and CTO Huiwen Yao listed among the inventors.
The patent covers a tiled antenna structure featuring solar cells on one side, radio-frequency equipment on the other, and electronic components housed within a honeycomb middle layer.
Heat pipes distribute heat locally across each tile, while specialized internal surfaces protect chips, batteries and other components from extreme temperature swings in low Earth orbit.
AST noted that the solar-facing surface moved from minus 70 degrees Celsius in darkness to 80 degrees Celsius in sunlight during a single 90-minute orbital pass.
The patent is a continuation of filings dating back to 2019 and 2020, allowing AST to retain its early priority date while extending protection to cover technology used in its larger, newer satellites.
AST’s BlueWalker 3 demonstrator carried a 693-square-foot array when it deployed in 2022, while the newer Block 2 BlueBird satellites carry arrays spanning 2,400 square feet, roughly 3.5 times larger.
The patent joins AST’s existing portfolio of more than 3,900 patents and patent-pending claims, reinforcing the company’s intellectual property position as competition in the satellite mobile market accelerates.
The timing is notable given that SpaceX’s Starlink is aggressively expanding beyond emergency connectivity toward mainstream mobile services, putting the two companies on a direct collision course.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said last month that the company “definitely intend to build out terrestrial” infrastructure and wants Starlink to become a “true mobile service,” expecting it to win “quite a few” customers from AT&T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ) and T-Mobile US (TMUS).
Starlink has pursued that goal by combining a large satellite constellation with acquired wireless spectrum, including spending approximately $19.6 billion to acquire 65 megahertz of EchoStar spectrum.
AST takes a different approach, using fewer satellites with much larger cellular arrays to connect directly to standard, unmodified smartphones through established carrier partners.
Those carrier partners include AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone Group (VOD), Rakuten and Bell Canada, with AST demonstrating speeds nearing 200 megabits per second to standard handsets.
Both SpaceX and AST have also expressed interest in Grain Management’s 800-megahertz airwaves, signaling that the spectrum battle between the two companies is far from settled.
Despite the premarket gains, retail sentiment on Stocktwits remained “bearish” over the past week, even as 24-hour message volumes climbed 27% around the stock.
One Stocktwits user wrote, “$ASTS The price will continue to slide down regardless the macro BS or sector BS until management will provide some meaningful update about BB 11 status and the next batch shipment date.”
Another user added, “$ASTS the silence is deafening!!! I feel something big is happening behind the scenes! Big could = bad and it could = good. But this silences regarding the badly stalled launches cadence and the BB11 mystery is screaming!!”
Over the past twelve months, ASTS stock has risen 43%, reflecting sustained investor interest even as questions about satellite deployment timelines continue to weigh on near-term sentiment.
