A Moriarty-based company’s stratospheric platform has re-entered the United States. High Altitude Platform Systems (HAPS) for stratospheric infrastructure completed its record-breaking trans-Pacific flight from New Mexico to Japan and back.

Callled Service Test 1 (ST1) mission, the stratospheric platform was developed by Sceye. ST1 launched on August 9, 2026, and arrived in Japan 13 days later. While operating in Japan, Sceye demonstrated mobile broadband connectivity to unmodified devices through SoftBank Corp.’s core network and HAPS-based edge computing and communication with drones to support the development of a 3D communications network.

Mission validated technology, vehicle systems, payload

“Groundbreaking and historic only begin to describe our ST1 flight,” says Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, Founder and CEO of Sceye.

“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. The stratosphere is what will enable the always-on future – including the promised land of 6G. Together ground, stratosphere, and space – each operating at their optimal strengths, will change the course of humanity.”

During its journey, Sceye’s ST1 traveled nearly 30,000 km and re-entered continental U.S. on September 4, 2026. ST1 reached airspace near Sceye’s headquarters in Moriarty, New Mexico on September 5, 2026, where Sceye completed additional vehicle testing and a planned termination and descent.

Conducted in partnership with SoftBank Corp, a leading operator of telecommunications and IT businesses in Japan and globally, ST1 marks Sceye’s first flight to Asia and a groundbreaking milestone toward the commercial deployment of HAPS as stratospheric infrastructure. ST1 carried SceyeCELL, a first-of-its-kind “cell tower in the sky” designed to deliver wide-area mobile broadband directly to standard devices from the stratosphere. When deployed at full scale, one Sceye HAPS is designed to cover the equivalent area of approximately 500 terrestrial towers, according to a press release.

Stratosphere offers the optimal vantage point

The stratosphere offers the optimal vantage point: It is close enough to Earth for high-capacity connectivity and observation, yet the altitude is high enough for wide-area reach. Importantly, the stratosphere offers space-like conditions without the cost of being in space and the disadvantages of being in orbit. Sceye’s HAPS maintain altitude and their area of operation in the stratosphere through consecutive day and night cycles, operating like geostationary satellites, only 1,800 times closer to Earth and at a fraction of the cost, as per the release.

The platform traveled nearly 30,000 km from New Mexico to Japan and back to New Mexico over a month-long journey. The platform also tested emergency calls, using an emergency alert messaging system designed for large-scale disasters, as well as communications with drones.

Through a server installed on the HAPS, Sceye and SoftBank conducted data processing directly on the platform, demonstrating an average round-trip processing response time of 68 milliseconds, reducing communications latency by over 40% compared with internet-based cloud processing. This marks the world’s first successful test in which a mobile core network and a web server for processing were installed on a HAPS, enabling response processing to be performed entirely onboard the HAPS and the results to be relayed back to smartphones.

Researchers in the United States are shaping the nanoscience frontier, using atomic‑scale control to accelerate advances in electronics, energy storage, catalysis, sensing and medicine.

“At Argonne, some of the world’s brightest innovators are turning nanoscience into the next generation of discovery, pushing ideas that once seemed impossible into the realm of the achievable,” said Gary Wiederrecht, director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials and the Nanoscience and Technology division.

At the nanoscale, properties can shift dramatically

It has also been highlihted that modern nanoscience rests on a simple idea: Matter behaves differently when it becomes small enough. At the nanoscale, properties can shift dramatically because quantum effects and the forces acting at a material’s surface — such as electrostatic and other molecular interactions — begin to dominate their behavior.

“What makes nanoscience so exciting is that it is ultimately about the extraordinary changes that occur when materials shrink from the bulk world into the nanoscale, where virtually everything begins to behave differently,” said Gary Wiederrecht, director of the CNM and Argonne’s Nanoscience and Technology division.

​”At the nanoscale, new properties emerge — optical, electrical, chemical — that simply don’t exist at larger scales. Scientists and engineers use those changes to create impactful technologies that were once impossible.”

Argonne entered the modern era of nanoscience with deep strengths in materials research, photon science and advanced instrumentation. For decades, its researchers have worked to develop groundbreaking tools to redefine how scientists visualize, understand and engineer matter at the atomic scale.

Upgrade increased brightness of its X-ray beams 500‑fold

Completed in 1995, the APS is now the world’s brightest synchrotron X‑ray source. Its comprehensive upgrade, completed in 2026, increased the brightness of its X-ray beams 500‑fold, enabling researchers to more precisely image atomic structures and track defect formation in real time as materials undergo different environmental stresses, according to a press release.

A powerful new tool, Argonne’s world‑class In Situ Nanoprobe (ISN), moves the lab’s beamline imaging capability into the realm of ​“in situ” study, where researchers can watch how materials work, adapt and fail in real‑world conditions. This is a critical step toward breakthroughs in energy, microelectronics, quantum systems and advanced manufacturing.

“The APS is already one of the world’s great engines for understanding matter,” said Sarah Wiegold, an Argonne physicist. ​”The ISN expands that strength by adding an especially important dimension: the ability to probe nanoscale behavior under realistic operating conditions.”

The ISN connects with complementary APS techniques that examine materials across larger length scales, different time scales and alternate modes of contrast. Together, these capabilities create a far more complete understanding of complex materials — from the atomic and nanoscale origins of behavior to system-level performance, as per the release.