INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
Vodafone and Nokia to create first
4G network on the Moon
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T
he Moon will get 4G coverage next
year (2019), 50 years after the
first NASA astronauts walked on its
surface. Vodafone plans to create the first 4G
network on the Moon to support a mission
by PTScientists in 2019 and has appointed
Nokia as its technology partner.
Berlin-based company, PTScientists, is
working with Vodafone Germany and Audi
to achieve the first privately-funded Moon
landing. ‘Mission to the Moon’ is due to
launch in 2019 from Cape Canaveral on a
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Vodafone’s network expertise will be used
to 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 4G network will enable the Audi
lunar quattro rovers to communicate and
transfer scientific data and HD video while
they carefully approach and study NASA’s
Apollo 17 lunar roving vehicle that 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, which 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’ and is
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the first step to building communications
infrastructure for future missions.
Vodafone Germany CEO, Dr Hannes
Ametsreiter, commented: “This project
involves a radically innovative approach
to the development of mobile network
infrastructure. It is also a great example of
an independent, multi-skilled team achieving
an objective of immense significance
through their courage, pioneering spirit
and inventiveness.”
Robert Böhme, CEO and Founder of
PTScientists, said: “This is a crucial first
step for sustainable exploration of the
solar system. In order for humanity to
leave the cradle of Earth, we need to
develop infrastructures beyond our home
planet. With ‘Mission to the Moon’, we
will establish and test the first elements of
a dedicated communications network on
the Moon. The great thing about this LTE
solution is that it saves so much power and
the less energy we use sending data, the
more we have to do science!”
Nokia Chief Technology Officer and Bell
Labs’ President, Marcus Weldon, said: “We
are very pleased to have been selected by
Vodafone to be its technology partner. 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.” n
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