By 2022, astronauts on the moon will be able to make cellular calls, stream videos and more, thanks to NASA and Nokia’s joint venture to put a 4G network on earth’s lunar neighbour. Besides voice communication and data transmission, the mobile network could power navigation, stream biometric data on the astronauts’ health and fitness, and direct remote-control robots and sensors on the lunar surface. Finnish phone company, Nokia, promises that the lunar network will be “ultra compact, low-power, space-hardened, end-to-end 4G LTE.” It will also be upgraded to 5G over time.
The network will be designed to withstand the extreme conditions of the launch and lunar landing, and to operate in space. It will have to be sent to the moon in an extremely compact form to meet the stringent size, weight and power constraints of space payloads.
Nokia said the network would be using 4G/LTE, in use worldwide for the last decade, instead of the latest 5G technology, because the former was a more known quantity with proven reliability. The company would also “pursue space applications of LTE’s successor technology, 5G”.
Picture Credit : Google
