In a bid to expand their businesses, Japanese telecommunications giants Nippon Telegraph and KDDI Corp. are venturing into space. They plan to build high-speed wireless networks in the stratosphere to link the Earth and the moon.

What Happened: NTT, Japan's largest telecom carrier, announced on Jun. 3 that it will launch an "airborne base station" on a commercial basis by 2026, reported The Asahi Shimbun.

This initiative is part of the NTT C89 orbital development program, which includes the installation of a high-altitude platform station (HAPS) – an unmanned aircraft equipped with a repeater that can communicate directly with smartphones.

Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank Corp (OTC:SFBQF) (OTC:SFTBF) is also working on the development and commercialization of a HAPS, along with plans to offer a foreign-affiliated satellite-based telecom service in Japan.

NTT Docomo Inc., a mobile carrier, plans to invest up to $100 million in AALTO HAPS Ltd., an affiliate of Airbus SE, to build the aircraft. This commercialization will mark the world's first realization of such an initiative.

KDDI also disclosed its space business strategies in May, intending to establish a telecom network between Earth and the moon by 2028. The company aims to create a high-speed 5G communications environment on the moon by 2030.

"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."

Why It Matters: The Japanese telecom companies' foray into space comes when the global space industry is experiencing rapid growth. Indonesia's telecom industry has already voiced concerns over the entry of Elon Musk's Starlink, calling for a temporary halt to the company's services.

An estimate by U.S. financial services giant Morgan Stanley projects the global market for space businesses to reach $1 trillion by 2040, tripling its current size over the next 20 years, according to the report.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has over 100 Starlink satellites in orbit with Direct to Cell capabilities, aiming to provide global access to texting, calling, and internet browsing using standard LTE phones. In March 2023, Finnish telecom major Nokia Oyj planned to send 4G network equipment to the moon aboard a SpaceX rocket.

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Photo by Nobuyuki Hayashi on Shutterstock

This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Kaustubh Bagalkote