Japanese news agency KDDI and mapmaker Jenlin launched a drone delivery service Thursday in the mountainous city
of Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, using the Starlink satellite Internet access service of U.S. aerospace company SpaceX.
It is a new delivery service that connects drones to StarLink services that provide stable communication environments in mountainous areas, allowing residents in Chichibu, where roads were closed due to landslides in September last year, to receive food and other items by courier. Regularly.
According to KDDI, this is the first time that an official drone delivery service (official name: Space Exploration Technologies) using SpaceX's StarLink service has been launched in Japan.
KDDI has established a base station for the "au" mobile phone service compatible with the Starlink service in Chichibu. Even in mountainous areas where it is difficult to build optical fiber networks, StarLink service has been used to secure an indispensable communication environment for drone control.
Under the new service, items such as food and medicine ordered by residents will be delivered once a week by the end of March. The drone used for the service carries up to 5kg of goods and is 3km away?It flies autonomously to the affected area.
