Tokyo – September 07, 2026 -- Sceye's stratospheric platform completed a 15,000-km trans-Pacific flight from New Mexico to Japan in 13 days, demonstrating mobile broadband delivery to unmodified devices through SoftBank Corp.'s core network.
Sceye's ST1 mission cut cloud-processing latency by more than 40%
The Service Test 1 (ST1) aircraft carried a server onboard the platform, achieving an average round-trip processing response time of 68 milliseconds. Sceye said this marked the world's first test in which a mobile core network and web server were installed directly on a High-Altitude Platform System (HAPS), allowing response processing to occur onboard before results were relayed to smartphones.
ST1 operated within Japanese airspace for over seven days at 16.5 km altitude
The platform maintained a station-seeking radius as low as 5 km while completing telecommunications, drone communications, and emergency-alert testing designed for large-scale disaster response. Sceye reported communications performance equivalent to terrestrial networks while reducing radio interference with ground-based base stations.
SoftBank invested in Sceye's HAPS infrastructure in 2025 to complement towers and satellites
The mission carried SceyeCELL, described as a "cell tower in the sky" capable of covering the equivalent area of approximately 500 terrestrial towers when deployed at full scale. During the flight, Sceye and SoftBank tested text messaging, voice calls, internet access, video streaming, and drone-based communications to support a planned 3D communications network.
ST1 launched August 9, 2026 and remains airborne over the Pacific
The aircraft departed New Mexico at 7:00 AM MDT and was returning toward the United States at the time of the announcement. The mission followed Sceye's Endurance Program, in which its SE2 platform flew more than 10,000 km from New Mexico to Brazil earlier in 2026 to validate long-duration stratospheric performance.
Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, Founder and CEO of Sceye, said the flight demonstrates the performance required to make the stratosphere a viable infrastructure layer for AI, edge computing, and 6G applications.