(CNN) — Texting the moon? Broadcasting from Mars? It's not as far off as you might think.
That's the shared vision of NASA and Nokia, which have partnered to establish a cellular network on the Moon to help lay the groundwork for a long-term human presence on other planets.
A SpaceX rocket will be launched this year (exact date yet to be confirmed) that will carry a 4G network to the Moon. The lander will install the system at the Moon's south pole and then be remotely controlled from Earth.
“The first challenge in developing and operating the network is having space-eligible cellular equipment that meets the appropriate size, weight and power requirements and is deployed without a technician,” said Walt Engeland, NASA's deputy associate administrator for programs in space. Directorate of Technology Mission. No less important is the fact that it must operate in a harsh lunar environment of extreme temperatures and radiation.
The 4G network unit is being built by Nokia's Bell Labs and uses a variety of commercial components available in the market. It will be mounted on a lander made by US company Intuitive Machines, and will link the lander via radio equipment to two roving vehicles with its own special mission: searching for ice.
An artist's rendering of landing on the landing surface. Credit: Intuitive Machines/Nokia Bell Labs.
One of the vehicles, the Lunar Outpost Rover, will explore an area called the Shackleton Connecting Ridge, and the other, the Micro-Nova Hopper, will dive into a crater to search for unprecedented nearby sources of frozen water.
Images of the frozen water will be sent to the lander and then sent back to Earth in real time via a cellular network, a world first. Lunar ice could be used to create breathable oxygen and fuel that would eventually be used to launch missions from the Moon to Mars.
For the project Artemis For NASA, which aims to return astronauts to the moon this decade, cellular connectivity is invaluable.
Currently, astronauts communicate with each other by radio, but NASA wants a lunar communications system capable of supporting high-resolution video and science data, especially as the Artemis missions become more sophisticated, Engeland said.
“Communication on the moon is critical to Artemis, as important as other elements of the mission, such as power, water to drink and air to breathe,” Engelund said.
“Over time, this initiative will help establish a lunar communications network that will allow our explorers to send science data, consult with mission control and talk to their families as if they were walking down the street with their cell phones.”
This could lay the groundwork for an extraterrestrial but not very different internet from Earth. Personal devices can be connected to such networks, allowing space colonies to use smartphones with access to all the applications and services available to people on Earth.
NASA selected Bell Labs as part of its Tipping Point initiative, a series of partnerships with companies to develop technologies for future missions that will play a key role in the future space economy.
Bell Labs received a A grant of US$14.1 million In 2020 and, in January, there was Nokia selected The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will begin work on a communications infrastructure that will eventually serve as a “framework for the lunar economy.”
“The future lunar economy will rely on communications technologies to collect and analyze data, share information, and maintain and control operations,” Bell Labs Solutions Research President Thierry Klein told CNN.
“This includes maintaining a permanent or semi-permanent human presence on the Moon, as well as automated robotic operations for transportation, resource extraction, mineral processing and scientific data collection.”
Artist's rendering showing a close-up of the 4G base station unit integrated into the lander. Credit: Intuitive Machines/Nokia Bell Labs.
There are also potential business benefits for terrestrial companies.
If a network can survive a trip to orbit, deploy and withstand the vacuum of space, wildly fluctuating temperatures and cosmic radiation, it can survive in harsh places like Earth's polar caps. deserts or ocean floors.
“Especially when it comes to remote deployments, industrial sites, public safety, emergency response, disaster recovery or security, having small, space-saving networking equipment that can be easily transported and deployed anywhere is very useful,” Klein said.
