Nasa’s ambitious 'Artemis' project aims to return humans to the Moon; to set up a long-term human presence there; kick-start a lunar economy (largely based on mining lunar resources), and establish infrastructure to support a crewed mission to Mars. Nasa is working alongside international partners including ESA, JAXA, the UKSA and many private companies.
Nasa has now selected Nokia’s US subsidiary to deploy an “ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened” 4G network on the Moon to support a small human presence, with a view to later updating to a 5G network. The contract is worth $14.1m (£10.9m).
Nokia will mostly use off-the-shelf technology such as lightweight 4G base stations, adapted to “withstand the harsh conditions of the launch and lunar landing and to operate in the extreme conditions of space”.
According to Nokia, the telecoms equipment will be installed on the surface using a remotely controlled lunar hopper in late 2022. The hopper will...