Nokia hopes to install a data network on the moon around 2023, an executive told reporters.
Thomas Coex | AFP via Getty Images
nokia is gearing up to launch a 4G mobile network on the moon later this year, hoping to boost exploration of the moon — and eventually pave the way for a human presence on the satellite planet.
The Finnish telecom group plans to launch the network on a SpaceX rocket in the coming months, Luis Maestro Ruiz De Temino, Nokia’s chief engineer, told reporters earlier this month at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.
The network will be powered by an antenna-equipped base station stored in the Nova-C lunar lander designed by the US space company Intuitive Machines, as well as by a powered rover. Solar power included.
An LTE connection will be established between the lander and the rover.
The infrastructure will land in Shackleton Crater, which is located along the southern edge of the moon.
Nokia says the technology is designed to withstand the harsh conditions of space.
The network will be used on Nasa’s Artemis 1 mission, which aims to send the first human astronauts to walk on the lunar surface since 1972.
The aim is to demonstrate that ground-based networks can meet the communication needs of future space missions, Nokia said, adding that its network will allow astronauts to communicate with each other and with mission control, as well as remote control of autonomous vehicles and live transmission of time video and telemetry data back to Earth.
According to Maestro Ruiz De Temino, the lander will launch using a SpaceX rocket. He explained that the rocket wouldn’t take the lander all the way to the lunar surface – it had a propulsion system to complete the journey.
Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, says that 2023 is an “optimistic target” for Nokia device launches.
Sag told CNBC via email: “If the hardware is ready and validated as it is, there is a good chance they can launch in 2023 as long as the launch partner they choose doesn’t encounter any setbacks. any hesitation or delay”.
nokia before speak that its lunar network will “provide critical communications capabilities for a wide variety of data transmission applications, including critical command and control functions, lunar rover remote control, real-time navigation and high-resolution video streaming.”
use data
We’ll need more than an internet connection, if we ever live on the moon. For example, engineering giant Rolls-Royce is working on a nuclear reactor to power future lunar residents and explorers.
One of the things Nokia hopes to achieve with its lunar network is to find ice on the moon. Much of the moon’s surface is now dry, but recent unmanned missions to the moon have yielded discoveries of ice remnants trapped in sheltered craters around the poles.
Such water could be treated and used for drinking, split into hydrogen and oxygen for use as rocket fuel, or separated to supply oxygen to astronauts.
“I can see this being used by future expeditions to continue exploring the moon because it really feels like a big test of capabilities before we start using it,” Sag told CNBC. for commercial purposes for additional exploration and potential future mining activities”.
“Mining requires a lot of infrastructure and having consistent data about the location of certain resources.
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