India, Dec. 24 -- AST SpaceMobile, has announced the successful orbital launch of its BlueBird 6 satellite, part of its efforts to develop a space-based cellular broadband network intended to connect directly with standard smartphones for commercial and government use.

The BlueBird 6 mission lifted off at 10:25 PM EST on 23 December from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. With this deployment, BlueBird 6 is the largest commercial communications array to date to be placed in low Earth orbit, covering nearly 2,400 square feet. This is approximately three times the size of the earlier BlueBird 1-5 satellites.

The satellite has been designed to support a range of commercial and government applications, including space-bas...