Sceye signs five-year deal to fly HAPS fleet for SoftBank in Japan
Sceye · SoftBank
Sceye signed a five-year deal to fly a fleet of at least 40 stratospheric platforms for SoftBank over Japan.
what happened
Sceye and SoftBank signed a five-year master services agreement under which Sceye will manufacture, launch and operate a fleet of at least 40 of its high-altitude platform system (HAPS) airships over Japan, Payload reports. Sceye owns and operates the platforms; SoftBank buys the service, mostly mobile broadband with a subset forming a free-space optical laser network. SoftBank previously put $15 million into Sceye's Series C in 2025 and completed a 30-day round-trip test flight from New Mexico to Japan in September.
why it matters
The deal locks in a HAPS fleet size large enough to matter for connectivity resellers and carriers weighing the stratospheric layer against LEO constellations for rural and backup coverage. Sceye's founder frames HAPS and LEO as complementary rather than competing, a read that matters for operators building multi-layer connectivity stacks.
for who
connectivity resellers, carriers evaluating NTN coverage
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Sceye, SoftBank
- Category
- partnership
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 2 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-11-03
- Published
- 2026-11-03 14:57 UTC