An oblong silver airship recently completed a 30-day journey, flying through Earth’s stratosphere to deliver mobile broadband connectivity to cellphones.
Aerospace company Sceye launched its Service Test 1 (ST1) mission on August 9 for a trans-Pacific flight from New Mexico to Japan and back. The airship operated for a week over Japan to test its capability to provide high-speed connectivity from the stratosphere for emergency and disaster response scenarios.
“This mission proved not only that our technology, vehicle systems, payload, and operational infrastructure are ready for connectivity services, but also that the stratosphere is where the future non-terrestrial infrastructure lies,” Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, Founder and CEO of Sceye, said in a statement. “The stratosphere is what will enable the always-on future—including the promised land of 6G.”
Going up
Sceye’s experimental vehicles, officially called High Altitude Platform Systems, are designed to operate like cell towers in the sky. Their balloon-like design allows them to stay suspended in the stratosphere for months or years at a time.
The airship relies on the buoyancy of helium to stay airborne instead of consuming fuel or electrical energy. Meanwhile, solar cells placed on top of the airship’s hull power its communications payload and help it maintain its position against stratospheric winds.
During its latest test flight, Sceye’s ST1 traveled 18,641 miles (30,000 kilometers) before arriving at the airspace near Sceye’s headquarters in Moriarty, New Mexico, on September 5. The vehicle completed additional testing before a planned termination and descent.
Testing, testing
ST1 carried SceyeCell, an airborne cellular network antenna designed to deliver wide-area mobile broadband directly to standard devices from the stratosphere. When deployed at full scale, a single airship could cover the equivalent area of approximately 500 terrestrial towers, according to Sceye.
During the flight, the airship demonstrated mobile broadband communications, including text messaging, voice calls, internet access, and video streaming. The platform also tested emergency calls using an emergency alert messaging system designed for large-scale disasters, as well as communications with drones.
With SceyeCell, the company is aiming to compete with satellites delivering connectivity from low-Earth orbit without the operational cost of being in space. The stratosphere, according to Sceye, is close enough to Earth for high-capacity connectivity and observation while at a high-enough altitude to offer a wide-area reach. Sceye’s vehicles operate similar to a geostationary satellite, except 1,800 times closer to Earth, according to the company.
“Together ground, stratosphere, and space – each operating at their optimal strengths, will change the course of humanity,” Frandsen said.
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