Linking humans from the moon? NASA's proposal to install a Nokia cellular network on the moon

The Intuitive Machines spacecraft that became the first private company to land on the moon one year ago launched its second mission from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday (Feb. 26).

Since separating from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on which it was strapped, the Intuitive Machines-built Athena moon lander is on course to arrive at the moon March 6.

Ten-day IM-2 mission also to try establish first lunar surface cellular network in addition to mining for valuable resources on moon's far side

The Finnish telecommunications company Nokia and NASA developed the mobile network.

Cellular connectivity on the Moon

Radio waves have been used to communicate from the moon up to now, but the transmitting and receiving antennas on the lunar surface must have a straight line of sight. On the far side, which never faces Earth, that is not the case.

NASA's Artemis program depends on building a lunar communications network to get astronauts back to the moon by 2030, so they can view high-resolution video and science data in real time.

So cellular technology was proposed instead, and in 2020 NASA awarded a contract to Nokia Bell Labs to develop an “ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened, end-to-end LTE solution, ” the company said in a press release at the time.

Nokia said one of the goals of the IM-2 mission was to show that “the same cellular technologies used to connect our smartphones on Earth can be used to provide communications and critical connectivity for future lunar missions. ” (In February 2023, Nokia said it had partnered with Thales Alenia Space on the project. ) But these parts would need to be modified for lunar use, as the conditions on the moon and in space are harsh. Nokia announced in July that year that it had teamed up with Intuitive Machines.

Nokia said back in January this year that the Athena lander now features its full Lunar Surface Communication System (LSCS). As reported, the LSCS will use the same 4G/LTE technology used back on Earth. Nokia said it chose the network due to its "excellent performance and economies of scale" and its "well-established status in terrestrial networks. ”

The hopper and the lunar rover are the two device modules that make up the LSCS, and as they explore the lunar surface after Athena lands they will try to hook up to its cellular network. Nokia says Athena itself will also be linked to Earth, for command and control functions and to stream HD video.

The LSCS fits everything in a single “network in a box” except for the antenna and a power source. “Alongside the box, which is your base station and tower, we have the antenna on the lander, ” Thierry Klein, president of Nokia Bell Labs Solutions Research, told MIT Technology Review. The lander’s solar panels will power the box.