NASA Partners With Nokia to Put 4G on The Moon This Year
In preparation for semi-permanent human presence on our lunar neighbour, a 4G network would lower costs for off-world communications and make life easier.
Back in 2020, NASA gave Nokia’s Bell Labs a $14 million grant to develop the network and transmitters to function on the Moon. Now, the fruits of their labours are coming to fruition and is expected to be launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket later this year at a date yet to be determined.
It will reach the Lunar surface via a landing craft made by the US company Intuitive Machines. Once there, the objective is to connect the lander via radio equipment to 2 small rovers that will be dispatched in search of water ice. If all goes according to plan, the ideal result would then be for the rovers to find water ice and transmit high-resolution video and images of it via the Bell Labs network down to Earth - a world-first and a truly remarkable expansion of the 4G network with astronauts able to have the same terrestrial network options - and a myriad of the usual apps - that they would have on Earth. Currently, space missions rely on traditional and rather basic radio telecom systems.
“The first challenge to getting a network up and running is having a space-qualified cellular equipment that meets the appropriate size, weight, and power requirements, as well as being deployed without a technician,” NASA told CNN. “Eventually, this effort will help establish a lunar communications network that could give our explorers the ability to beam scientific data back, confer with mission control, and talk to their families, as if they were walking down the street on their cellphones.”
