Streaming and texting on the Moon: Nokia and NASA are taking 4G into space

Texting on the Moon? Streaming on Mars? It may not be as far away as you think.

That’s the shared vision of NASA and Nokia, who have partnered to set up a cellular network on the Moon to help lay the building blocks for long-term human presence on other planets.

A SpaceX rocket is due to launch this year — the exact date has yet to be confirmed — carrying a simple 4G network to the Moon. The lander will install the system at the Moon’s south pole and then it will be remotely controlled from Earth.

“The first challenge to getting a network up and running is having a space-qualified cellular equipment that meets the appropriate size, weight, and power requirements, as well as being deployed without a technician,” Walt Engelund, deputy associate administrator for programs at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, told CNN. No less of a challenge, it will need to operate in the harsh lunar environment of extreme temperatures and radiation.

The 4G network unit is being built by Nokia’s Bell Labs using a range of off-the-shelf commercial components. It will be loaded onto a lander made by US company Intuitive Machines, and once deployed it will connect the lander via radio equipment to two roaming vehicles with their own special mission: to search for ice.

An artist rendering of the lander making its descent to the surface.

One of the vehicles, the Lunar Outpost rover, will explore the area known as Shackleton Connecting Ridge, while the other, the Micro-Nova hopper, will plunge into a crater to scan for unprecedented up-close evidence of Moon ice.

Images of ice — transmitted back to the lander and then Earth in near real-time via the cellular network — would be a world-first. Lunar ice could be used to create breathable oxygen, and even fuel that could eventually be used to launch Mars missions from the Moon.

For NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon this decade, cellular connectivity is invaluable.

Currently, astronauts talk to each other by radio, but NASA wants a lunar communications system capable of supporting high-resolution video and science data, said Engelund — especially as Artemis missions become more sophisticated.

“Being able to communicate on the Moon is critical to Artemis — as critical as any other mission element like power, water to drink, and air to breathe,” said Engelund.

“Eventually, this effort will help establish a lunar communications network that could give our explorers the ability to beam scientific data back, confer with mission control, and talk to their families, as if they were walking down the street on their cellphones.”

It could lay the groundwork for an off-world internet not dissimilar to that of Earth’s. Personal devices could connect to such networks, allowing space colonists to use smartphones that can access all the apps and services available to those back 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 puts them in prime position for key roles in the future space economy.

Bell Labs was given a $14.1 million grant in 2020, and in January, Nokia was selected by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to begin working on a communications services infrastructure that will eventually serve as the “framework for the lunar economy.”

“A future lunar economy will critically depend on communication technologies to collect and analyze data, share information, and maintain and control operations,” Thierry Klein, president of Bell Labs Solutions Research, told CNN.

“This includes sustaining a semi-permanent or permanent human presence on the Moon, as well as automated robotic operations for transportation, resource mining, mineral processing and scientific data collection.”

An artist rendering showing a close-up view of the 4G base station unit integrated into the lander.

There are potential commercial benefits for Earthly business ventures too.

If a network can withstand the journey into orbit, then deploy and endure autonomously amid the vacuum of space, wildly fluctuating temperatures and cosmic radiation, it will be able to survive the harshest locations on Earth — such as polar ice caps, deserts, or offshore platforms.

“Especially when it comes to remote deployments, industrial sites, public safety, emergency response, disaster recovery or defense, it is highly beneficial to have compact, low-footprint network equipment that can be easily transported and deployed anywhere,” Klein said.

Space research may seem far removed from daily life, but a surprising amount of NASA technology has found more earthly uses. Today's wireless headsets are an updated version of technology developed for astronauts in the 1960s. Before then, headsets used by airplane pilots were bulky and uncomfortable, but NASA commissioned a headset that could be implanted in an astronaut's helmet. It was used to transmit Neil Armstrong's words when he landed on the moon.

In the 1970s, former NASA engineer Frank Rudy developed shock-absorbing, gas-filled membranes fitted into the soles of running shoes. The idea drew on a process called "blow rubber molding," used by NASA to create lightweight space helmets. It was the basis of the "Nike Air" system, and was adapted by other shoe companies, helping protect runners' joints from impact injuries.

In the 1990s, NASA was looking into ways to create smaller cameras for spacecraft. It came up with the "complementary metal oxide semiconductor" (CMOS) image sensor, which produced high-quality digital photographs. As the technology developed it was licensed by the likes of Sony and Samsung, according to NASA, and CMOS is now a standard in digital cameras and phones. But camera phones aren't just for fun. The "Eyephone" app, for example, scans eyes to detect diseases such as cataracts and glaucoma, and is aimed at people living in rural areas in developing countries.

CT scans and radiology can help diagnose and monitor medical conditions by producing detailed images of our internal organs, blood vessels and bones. The technology was made possible by NASA research in the 1960s, when the space program was developing ways to computer-enhance images of the moon. This CT-scan room is part of a new hospital built for Covid-19 patients in Milan, Italy.

This indoor vertical farm in Belgium grows lettuce using LED light rather than sunlight. Vertical farms do not require soil and use little water, controlling light, air, humidity and temperature to optimize growth. NASA first developed this technology in the 1990s with the aim of growing plants in space.

Back in the 1960s NASA worked on creating a device to purify drinking water for astronauts. It used silver ions to kill off bacteria without affecting the taste. The technology has since been used across the world for drinking water and in swimming pools. The PentaPure brand system was used to purify water on Space Shuttle missions and is now used in homes and disaster relief efforts.

This ear thermometer is being used at a medical center in Paris. Thermometers that measure the infrared energy emitted from the eardrum were developed in the early 1990s by Diatek Corporation, which was a part of a Technology Affiliates Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The ear thermometers were based on technology JPL created for its Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), which remotely monitored the temperature of stars and planets from the infrared radiation they emit.

Superinsulators used in cold weather gear such as winter coats, boots and sleeping bags stem from a technology that was first used to combat extreme temperatures in space. A material called "Radiant Barrier," developed by NASA in the 1960s, is now used in home insulation.

Cochlear implants can give a sense of sound to deaf people, by using electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve. A rudimentary version was trialled in the 1950s, and the idea was further developed by Adam Kissiah, a hard-of-hearing engineer at Kennedy Space Center. He had worked on sound and vibration sensor systems for NASA in the 1970s and used his knowledge to develop the life-changing implant.

Tasked with feeding astronauts on long space missions while also minimizing the weight of food, NASA turned to freeze drying. It refined existing techniques to the point where it says it can now retain 98% of the nutrients at 20% of the original weight. NASA also developed freeze-dried ice cream. These days, freeze-dried food is used in everything from emergency survival kits to disaster relief.

Foil blankets are used by paramedics to retain a person's body heat, and they're widely used to keep runners warm after a marathon. These metallic sheets originated from NASA research in the 1960s, when it was looking to insulate spacecraft and protect astronauts and equipment from the extreme temperature changes of space.

In the 1960s, NASA commissioned the Stanford Research Institute to find ways to make computers more interactive and useful. The research led to an early version of the mouse.

NASA research on the use of algae as a food for extended space travel led to the development of a nutritional ingredient known as Formulaid. It contains two fatty acids found in human milk and is now widely added to baby formula.

In the 1960s NASA developed Temper foam as a shock-absorbing filling to improve the comfort of its pilots' airplane seats. It has since been used to pad the helmets of football players, protect bedridden patients from bedsores, as molded seating for people with severe disabilities, and in memory foam mattresses.

How space-age technology has helped us on Earth

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