AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), Gilat (GILT): Sovereign Capital Funds Satellites

Between 4 June and 10 August 2026, AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), Gilat Satellite Networks (GILT), Planet Labs (PL) and BlackSky (BKSY) each described the same shift on their quarterly earnings calls: government money is moving from buying satellite data and capacity to paying directly for the satellites a commercial operator builds and owns.

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How government money moved from the revenue line to the cost of building satellites

A low Earth orbit satellite operator has had to carry the whole cost of its constellation. The company raises equity or debt, puts hundreds or thousands of satellites into orbit, builds the ground stations, and only then sells communications capacity or imagery to customers. Governments show up at that last step as one class of customer, and the money lands in revenue. The construction cost and the risk sit with the operator and its shareholders.

AST SpaceMobile's Japanese award changes the route that money takes. The company said it and long-time partner Rakuten (4755.T) were selected for Japan's low Earth orbit infrastructure development project, known as GLEO, with a total expected value of up to approximately $1 billion in what it called non-dilutive, non-debt government capital, still pending government approvals and final agreements [1]. In the Q&A, management said the money covers roughly half the investment in that group of satellites, that those satellites are essentially identical to the rest of the constellation, and that they can be used anywhere in the world through the same gateway architecture, with only that subset carrying a Japanese flag [1]. The funding country gets the flag; the assets are not locked to its territory.

The buyer's motive is control rather than procurement, which is why the arrangement may spread to comparable operators. AST said large countries and regional bodies want to replicate owned in-orbit resilient communications, driven by a desire for operational control of communications over their own territory [1]. On its 5 August call, Gilat said it sees many countries wanting to launch their own small sovereign LEO constellations [2].

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A Japan award of up to about $1 billion, with the Earth-observation precedent already running

The same structure is already routine on the imaging side. On its 4 June call, Planet Labs grouped sovereign satellite ownership with direct access and managed operations under satellite services, and said explicitly that its ACV (annual contract value) metric excludes that business [3]. On the same call, the company said it delivered Sweden's first sovereign reconnaissance satellite just four months after contract signing [3]. On 6 August, BlackSky said sovereign space capability has become a necessity for major governments and enterprises around the world; on the same call, an Oppenheimer analyst said outright that he had never really modeled sovereign into his estimates [4].

Communications has exactly one landed case so far, and it does not yet have government approval [1]. Sovereign orders have happened repeatedly in Earth observation, but whether communications follows the same path through to the end is not yet visible. Nearly all of this material comes from the operators' own accounts, with no independent confirmation from the funding side; AST SpaceMobile is also under investigation by Pomerantz LLP over potential securities fraud [8].

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Once a co-funder appears, financing capacity is no longer the only limit on constellation size

What used to decide how many satellites an operator could build was how much it could raise from equity and debt markets. Add a party that pays roughly half the build cost without diluting shareholders or adding debt, and the same equity base supports a larger constellation while each satellite ties up less of the operator's own capital. This business is also easy to miss: Planet already excludes sovereign satellite ownership from the ACV metric analysts watch most closely [3], so anyone reading only the usual contract measure will not see those assets or that revenue. The same sovereign budgets are reaching upstream as well. On 10 August, Rocket Lab said military spending in Europe has increased and that sovereign launch remains a hot topic globally [5].

Countries have another route available: build and own the constellation themselves. The European Union's IRIS2 works that way, with a EUR15.6 billion contract awarded to SpaceRISE and the satellite count raised to 348 [7]. That path gives commercial operators competition rather than funding. In March 2026, AST was still discussing exclusive military constellations and similar opportunities as possibilities [6]; the first money reached paper five months later. Two things can be checked directly from here: whether the GLEO government approvals and final agreements are signed, and whether this capital shows up in AST SpaceMobile's cash flow statement and balance sheet.

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Companies exposed to this change

• MDA Space (MDA): A Canadian space prime contractor that designs and builds satellites for governments, and in 2026 received a roughly $688 million Canadian government satellite contract [9]. If government money shifts from buying a whole satellite toward sharing a commercial operator's build cost, MDA faces the same budget spent a different way.
• Satellogic (SATL): An Earth-observation smallsat operator that delivers whole satellites to governments. It belongs to the same class of sovereign order but involves no co-funding, which makes it a useful contrast for how the two approaches land in the accounts.
• Telesat (TSAT): Another LEO communications constellation operator. A broad move toward owned in-orbit capability would rearrange where its revenue comes from, and it is also the test of how far this mechanism extends.

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Sources

[1] Drillr · AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) · 2026-08-10 · FY2026 Q2 earnings call

"So these represent roughly half of the investment on those satellites. in capital that is non-dilutive and non-debt for global usage of these satellites, but with a flag, a Japanese satellite for that subset of satellites."

[2] Drillr · Gilat Satellite Networks (GILT) · 2026-08-05 · FY2026 Q2 earnings call

[3] Drillr · Planet Labs (PL) · 2026-06-04 · FY2027 Q1 earnings call

[4] Drillr · BlackSky (BKSY) · 2026-08-06 · FY2026 Q2 earnings call

[5] Drillr · Rocket Lab (RKLB) · 2026-08-10 · FY2026 Q2 earnings call

[6] Drillr · AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) · 2026-03-02 · FY2025 Q4 earnings call

[7] Drillr · EU IRIS2 constellation · 2026-08-10 · news search record

[8] Drillr · AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) · 2026-08-10 · news search record

[9] Drillr · MDA Space (MDA) · 2026-08-07 · news search record

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