From next year, the Moon will have its own 'space-grade' 4G mobile network. It will enable the first live-streaming of HD video from the Moon's surface to a global audience.
The first 4G network on the Moon will support the first privately funded mission to the planet, an initiative by Berlin-based PTScientists working withVodafone Germany and Audi. Mission to the Moon is due to launch next year from Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Vodafone will set up the Moon's first 4G network, connecting two Audi lunar quattro rovers to a base station in the Autonomous Landing and Navigation Module (ALINA). Nokia, through Nokia Bell Labs, will create a space-grade Ultra Compact Network that will be the lightest ever developed - weighing less than one kilo, the same as a bag of sugar.
The 4G network will enable the Audi lunar quattro rovers to communicate and transfer scientific data and HD video as they approach and study NASA's Apollo 17 lunar roving vehicle. The buggy was used by the last astronauts to walk on the Moon (Commander Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt) to explore the Taurus-Littrow valley in December 1972.
Vodafone testing indicates that the base station should be able to broadcast 4G using the 1800 MHz frequency band and send back the first ever live HD video feed of the Moon's surface. The feed will be broadcast to a global audience via a deep space link that interconnects with the PTScientists server in the Mission Control Centre in Berlin.
A 4G network is highly energy efficient compared to analogue radio and that will be crucial to Mission to the Moon. It is seen as the first step to building communications infrastructure for future missions.
Nokia Chief Technology Officer and Bell Labs President, Marcus Weldon, said: "This important mission is supporting, among other things, the development of new space-grade technologies for future data networking, processing and storage, and will help advance the communications infrastructure required for academics, industry and educational institutions in conducting lunar research. These aims have potentially wide-ranging implications for many stakeholders and humanity as a whole, and we look forward to working closely with Vodafone and the other partners in the coming months, prior to the launch in 2019."