Sceye airship crosses Pacific and beams LTE from 54,000 feet over Japan

US aerospace firm Sceye completed a month-long round trip from New Mexico to Japan with its 83-meter uncrewed stratospheric airship. Over Shikoku it worked with SoftBank to backfill disabled cellular coverage with 4G LTE from about 54,000 feet.

• The outbound leg took 13 days and covered over 15,000 km across the Pacific
• The platform hovers near 60,000 feet, above the jet stream and 30x closer than LEO satellites
• SoftBank tests covered calls, texts, video and LTE-controlled drones
• Future versions could replace up to 500 ground towers and lift 250 kg payloads