The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted an initial licence for AST SpaceMobile to launch five of its low earth orbit (LEO) birds in September as the first step in provisioning its direct-to-device service.

With the licence, the fledging satellite player is now authorised to launch and operate V, S and UHF frequencies to support gateway, feeder link and telemetry, tracking, and control operations on its five Bluebird satellites.

The licence follows an update of AST SpaceMobile’s constellation filings with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and related filings with the FCC in March.

AST SpaceMobile noted those filings place the commercial satellites under the jurisdiction of the US.

The five Bluebird satellites are en route to a SpaceX launch site in Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida. The satellite company stated the birds will be launched during an unspecified seven-day window in September.

It will use Verizon and AT&T’s 850MHz spectrum, which is compatible with current standard smartphones, for a direct-to-device service.

While AST SpaceMobile plans to provide the service across the continental US, Vikram Raval, head of global regulatory affairs, stated the company is “fostering regulatory relationships domestically and across the globe” for its space-based infrastructure.

It is financially backed by AT&T, Verizon, Google and Vodafone Group. The company claims agreements with more than 45 mobile network operators globally, which have more than 2.8 billion existing subscribers.

In addition to AST SpaceMobile, T-Mobile US and SpaceX, and Apple aim to deploy various commercial services over the coming months.