4G mobile network to be built in Moon soon

The coming year, moon will witness its first mobile phone network which will enable high-definition streaming videos and photos from the lunar landscape back to earth, as part of a project to back the first privately funded moon mission.

Vodafone Germany, Nokia, and Audi are collaborating to support the mission that could allow lunar rovers to communicate with each other, 50 years after the first NASA astronauts walked on the moon.

Vodafone said it has appointed Nokia as its technology partner to develop a space-grade network which would be a small piece of hardware. As a part of an out-of-this-world mission that will allow scientists to deliver 4G mobile coverage to the moon in 2019, the device would weigh less than a bag of sugar, reported Reuters. It is part of a global project to make trips to the moon commercially possible.

These companies are working with a Berlin-based company, PTScientists on the project, with a launch scheduled in 2019 from Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Vodafone said.

Robert Böhme, the CEO, and founder of PTScientists said, “In order for humanity to leave the cradle of Earth, we need to develop infrastructures beyond our home planet,” The Berlin-based company that is part of the Mission to the moon project.

The plan is to connect two Audi lunar rovers to a base station in the Autonomous Landing and Navigation Module (ALINA).  

The 4G network will allow the Audi lunar rovers to transmit scientific data and HD video while they study NASA’s Apollo 17 lunar roving vehicle that was used by the last astronauts to walk on the Moon.