When NASA makes a return to the Moon by 2024, it wants its astronauts to have an efficient and reliable way to communicate with one another. To make that happen, the space agency is turning to Nokia for help and providing the Finnish company a $14.1 million funding to roll out 4G on the Moon.
Nokia has today announced further details about the project, which will pave the way towards a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface. The firm noted that deploying the first LTE/4G communications system in space will be extremely vital for NASA"s Artemis program, which seeks to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon by 2030. The announcement read:
“The network will provide critical communication capabilities for many different data-transmission applications, including vital command and control functions, remote control of lunar rovers, real-time navigation and streaming of high definition video.”
Nokia said that its solution will be "ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened, end-to-end LTE," and will be deployed on the Moon in late 2022. The firm plans to integrate its wireless communications system on the lunar surface in partnership with Intuitive Machines, a Texas-based private spacecraft design firm.
Once the delivery is made, the network will automatically configure itself and establish the first LTE communications system on the Moon, Nokia noted.