NASA’s Artemis missions aren’t expected to put human boots back on the Moon until 2025 at the earliest, but Nokia is already gearing up to put 4G internet on the Moon. In 2020, Nokia announced that it had been selected by NASA to build the first cellular network on the Moon. Three years after the initial announcement, Nokia finally plans to complete this task.
According to news reports from CNBC, Nokia aims to have 4G internet up and running on the Moon by the end of this year. The Finland-based company will rely on SpaceX rockets to deliver the needed hardware to the Moon. The network will work from a base attached to a Nova-C lunar lander. A solar-powered rover will also be delivered as part of the mission.
The lander and the rover are built to be able to communicate using LTE internet connectivity on the Moon. The network base will land in the Shackleton Crater, CNBC reports, an area of the Moon located near the Moon’s southern pole. This area of the lunar satellite will act as the landing area for future Artemis missions, so it makes sense to set up the network base nearby.
We’ve previously seen companies like Aquarian Space promise to set up Wi-Fi on the Moon in the next couple of years, so it isn’t surprising to see Nokia pushing for this year, too.
NASA would like to make space exploration more efficient by locating its space program on the Moon. This will allow it to launch long-distance rockets into space. It will be a relief to some communication problems that plague any Moon base if Nokia is able to establish a reliable internet connection.
Additionally, with scientists searching for water on the Moon, and some even claiming that tiny Moon beads could hold trillions of gallons of water, the possibility of a Moon base actually happening appears to be going up quite a bit. Of course, we must still get the Artemis III mission to the lunar surface and put human boots back on the Moon first.
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