Streaming and texting on the moon: Nokia and NASA are taking 4G into space
CNN
A mission launching this year will carry a simple 4G network to the Moon, helping to lay the building blocks for long-term human presence on other planets.
Texting on the Moon? Streaming on Mars? It may not be as far away as you think. That’s the shared vision of NASA and Nokia, who have partnered to set up a cellular network on the Moon to help lay the building blocks for long-term human presence on other planets. A SpaceX rocket is due to launch this year — the exact date has yet to be confirmed — carrying a simple 4G network to the Moon. The lander will install the system at the Moon’s south pole and then it will be remotely controlled from Earth. “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,” Walt Engelund, deputy associate administrator for programs at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, told CNN. No less of a challenge, it will need to operate in the harsh lunar environment of extreme temperatures and radiation. The 4G network unit is being built by Nokia’s Bell Labs using a range of off-the-shelf commercial components. It will be loaded onto a lander made by US company Intuitive Machines, and once deployed it will connect the lander via radio equipment to two roaming vehicles with their own special mission: to search for ice. One of the vehicles, the Lunar Outpost rover, will explore the area known as Shackleton Connecting Ridge, while the other, the Micro-Nova hopper, will plunge into a crater to scan for unprecedented up-close evidence of Moon ice.
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