The new way to provide internet coverage

Using a concept from the last century

An unmanned aerial platform built in the United States traveled over 15,000 km to demonstrate a new way of providing internet and mobile communication directly from the stratosphere. The mission began on August 9, 2026, when Sceye’s HAPS departed from New Mexico bound for Japan.

The platform uses a lighter-than-air system and solar energy to remain in the stratosphere for extended periods. After approximately 13 days and a journey of over 15,000 km across the Pacific, the vehicle entered Japanese airspace on the morning of August 23. Upon reaching its destination, the platform managed to remain for an extended period within an area with a radius of just 5 km, even while contending with stratospheric winds.

However, the primary objective was not simply to demonstrate that the aircraft could cross the Pacific; Sceye carried out the mission in collaboration with the Japanese operator SoftBank to test a telecommunications network installed on the HAPS itself. The platform carried a base station equivalent to a 4G LTE network. During the tests, smartphones on the ground successfully established two-way communication via the system located in the stratosphere.

Voice calls, text messaging, app usage, video calls, and video streaming were all performed; an emergency alert system designed for major disaster situations was also tested. This marked the first successful demonstration in Japan of communication between smartphones and a stratospheric HAPS platform. The tests also involved drones; an unmanned aircraft was remotely controlled using the connection provided by the HAPS.

The system transmitted flight commands, location data, and images captured by the drone—capabilities that could be utilized for disaster response operations, inspections of transmission lines and roads, forest monitoring, logistics in mountainous regions, and operations on remote islands or in marshlands.

Stratospheric data processing and latency reduction.

Another experiment took part of the computing infrastructure directly into the stratosphere. The team installed a processing server—alongside mobile network components—on the platform. Instead of sending specific information to ground-based servers or the internet, data could be processed on the platform itself. During testing, the system recorded an average round-trip latency of 68 milliseconds, representing a reduction of over 40% compared to cloud-based processing via the internet.

Sceye intends to use the results of these tests to prepare for the commercial launch of HAPS services in Japan starting in 2027. The long-term goal is to integrate terrestrial networks, stratospheric platforms, and satellites into a single, three-dimensional communication infrastructure.