Vodafone has been dealt a setback in its race against Elon Musk’s Starlink to launch mobile phone coverage from space in Britain.

The FTSE 100 telecoms business had intended to begin final trials of a service offering mobile phone data from orbiting satellites later this year. The mobile signals would be provided by AST Space Mobile, a US space business.

However, AST revealed last week that its initial constellation of 45 orbiting satellites will now not be ready until early 2027.

The delay threatens to set back Vodafone’s launch and may allow Mr Musk to steal a march on the company in the market.

Mr Musk’s $1.6tn (£1.2tn) SpaceX business has already started signing up telecoms companies as partners for a so-called “direct-to-device” mobile service, beaming down signals from orbit. In the UK, this includes working with Virgin Media O2.

AST, a $24bn space business, had planned to rely in part on rockets from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to blast its satellites into orbit. However, Blue Origin has been grounded after a catastrophic explosion of one of its rockets in May that damaged part of the Cape Canaveral space centre.

An earlier Blue Origin mission also resulted in one of AST’s satellites making it into space but being rendered useless after arriving in the wrong orbit.

AST had previously said its network would be ready for commercial deployment by the end of the year. However, it disclosed in a US filing on Wednesday that its planned 45 “BlueBird” satellites would be ready “in early 2027”.

Unlike Starlink, which has proposed launching thousands of small satellites, AST plans to launch dozens of much larger satellites. Its BlueBird spacecraft feature a 2,400 sq ft antenna array, which unfurls when the satellite reaches space.

These large satellites should be capable of beaming down 4G or even 5G internet to unmodified smartphones.

AST, which is listed in the US, has been backed by Google, Japan’s Rakuten and Vodafone in its effort to build an alternative system to Starlink.

It said last week that it planned to raise a further $1bn to pursue the acquisition of extra launch capacity.

Tim Farrar, an analyst at TMF Associates, said he questioned whether AST would be able to offer “continuous service across the UK before 2028”.

He added: “I doubt Vodafone would want to begin a trial with members of the public until the service is robust and working well. That’s not going to be possible this year.”

A Vodafone spokesman said: “As previously indicated, we are monitoring the progression of AST satellite launches to decide the timing of our beta-trial. We believe satellite via AST is an exciting, complementary service for customers because it offers the full broadband experience directly on to standard smartphones.”

AST was contacted for comment.