Nokia USA has just won a NASA contract worth $14.1 million to provide 4G cellular network on the Moon.
This grant is a part of NASA’s latest ‘Tipping Point’ selections announced on 14th October.
NASA has awarded a total of $370 million to Advance ‘Tipping Point’ Technologies for the Moon and Mars. This has been awarded to 14 different US companies stainable Artemis operations on the Moon by the end of the decade.
Talking about the planned 4G network, “The system could support lunar surface communications at greater distances, increased speeds and provide more reliability than current standards,” NASA noted in its contract award announcement.
Nokia’s research arm, Bell Labs announced the news about this contract on twitter.
To the moon! ?
— Bell Labs (@BellLabs) October 15, 2020
We are excited to have been named by @NASA as a key partner to advance “Tipping Point” technologies for the moon, to help pave the way towards sustainable human presence on the lunar surface.
So, what technology can you expect to see? (1/6) pic.twitter.com/wDNwloyHdP
Providing more details about the project, Bell labs mentioned the following points:
- “Our pioneering innovations will be used to build and deploy the first wireless network on the moon, starting with 4G/LTE technologies and evolving to 5G.”
- “Working with our partners at Intuitive Machines, this groundbreaking network will be the critical communications fabric for data transmission applications, including the control of lunar rovers, real-time navigation over lunar geography, & streaming of high definition video.”
- “The mission critical LTE network we have developed has been specially designed to withstand the extreme temperature, radiation and vacuum conditions of space, as well as the sizable vibrational impact during launch and landing on the lunar surface.”
- “This fully integrated cellular network meets the stringent size, weight and power constraints of space payloads in the smallest possible form factor”
Nokia has planned to launch a 4G network on Moon in 2018 as well. The company planned this in collaboration with PTScientists, a German space company, and Vodafone UK at the site of the Apollo 17 landing. But the mission was never executed.
