Japan’s communications carriers are looking to the “final frontier” to expand their businesses, with an eye toward a stratospheric communication platform and high-speed wireless capability on the moon. 

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) announced on June 3 that it will send aloft an “airborne base station” on a commercial basis in 2026.

KDDI Corp. released plans on building a telecom network that will link Earth and the moon by 2028.

On June 3, NTT President Akira Shimada unveiled the NTT C89 orbital development initiative.

One of the key programs under the endeavor is the envisioned installation of a high-altitude platform station (HAPS). An unmanned aircraft mounted with a repeater will be sent into the stratosphere 20 kilometers above the Earth.

The HAPS will be able to communicate directly with personal smartphones. It can likewise help establish telecommunications in not only disaster-affected regions but also mountainous areas and other locations where base stations are difficult to set up on land.

The selling point of the HAPS lies in its high-speed communications capabilities in particular, though that type of system can cover a narrower area than a satellite.

Such entities as mobile carrier NTT Docomo Inc. will invest up to $100 million (161 billion yen) in AALTO HAPS Ltd., an affiliate of Europe-based leading aircraft developer Airbus, which will build the plane.

The commercialization of the NTT HAPS program will reportedly mark the world’s first realization of such an initiative.

Aside from the endeavor, NTT is looking to pour resources into a project utilizing satellite observation data for commercial purposes, too, among other goals.

“We will be raising the total relevant sales to 100 billion yen or so within some 10 years,” said Shimada, expressing expectations for future prospects.

An estimate by U.S. financial services giant Morgan Stanley shows the global market for space businesses will hit $1 trillion by 2040, tripling in 20 years.

The Japanese government announced the establishment of the space strategy fund in April this year, with the aim of supplying as much as 1 trillion yen over the course of 10 years to assist in private companies’ space development and other projects.

The expansion of the market is believed to provide communications carriers a major opportunity, given that they have expertise in satellite telecommunications and other space-related technologies in particular.

Like NTT, KDDI disclosed its space business strategies on May 30. KDDI is planning to form a telecom network between Earth and the moon by 2028, with the goal of creating a high-speed 5G communications environment on the moon by 2030.

The aim is catering to growing telecom demand there at some point, as Earth’s satellite currently is drawing much attention due to the U.S.-led Artemis program, whose objective is deploying astronauts to the moon again after more than 50 years. 

“Telecommunications means will be essential when mankind arrives on the moon, although we have no immediate intention of monetizing our initiatives on the lunar surface,” explained Hiromichi Matsuda, a KDDI managing executive officer. “We will be extending our support.”

In addition, KDDI is moving to launch the Mugenlabo Universe framework to offer assistance for corporations to enter the space industry.

KDDI will make available a digital reproduction of outer space and other experimental environments for participating companies. Linking start-ups and large enterprises, the carrier plans to promote extraterrestrial exploration as well as land-based businesses using space technologies.

The purpose is taking a leadership role in the space industry, in the hopes of increasing KDDI’s presence.

SoftBank Corp. is involved in the development and commercialization of a HAPS. It is also forging ahead with plans to provide a foreign-affiliated satellite-based telecom service in Japan.

Rakuten Mobile Inc. is working toward creating an environment by the end of 2026 for direct communications between a satellite and smartphones on a commercial level.