Nokia is bringing 4K to the moon, which will help rovers explore its craters, map the rocky world, and watch fun videos of cats on TikTok.
(Image credit: Intuitive Machines, LLC)
What I love about the modern world is how it strives for excellence for the most seemingly mundane things. Like laying cables longer than the Earth's circumference to improve internet speeds, or sending a rocket to space to set up 4G on the moon. Yep, that's actually happening, and the 4G-enabled rocket is on its way to the moon right now. Meanwhile, there are still parts of my town that are network black spots, but that's probably not Nokia's fault.
I stumbled across Nokia's mission while reading up about the first datacenter to be sent to the moon, from Lonestar working with SSD company Phison. With Lonestar aiming to offering super-safe backups for corporate data from 384,000 km from Earth, it's on Nokia to get a good 4G signal on the craterous dusty rock.
Nokia's space-faring 4G has launched as a part of the SpaceX IM-2 lunar mission, which set off for the stars from Florida yesterday. The Nokia module will deploy from Intuitive Machine's lunar lander, which is also carrying Lonestar's data center, and will land on the lunar south pole sometime around March 4-6.
The Nokia system is called LSCS, or Lunar Surface Communication System, and contains the necessary components to connect up a 4G network. And now you might be wondering, who is even connecting to said network? This is where things get interesting, as there are two lunar mobility vehicles on that same lander, which both contain Nokia modules to establish a connection back to the lander.
One of these landers, Micro Nova, is intended to descend into large craters that live in shadow in search of possible ice deposits. The other, Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform, or MAPP, will drive off around the southern lunar surface, where it'll stop to take stereo imagery and map environmental data along the way. It's basically Assassin's Creed on the moon.
It's a pretty neat idea, especially as it is mostly the same 4G technology used on Earth, just repurposed and redesigned for life on the lunar surface. Nokia Bell Labs worked to ensure it could carry high-definition video, command-and-control communications, and telemetry data from the rovers to the lander, much like any mobile phone could do, and then retransmit that data from the lander to Earth using Intuitive Machines' own data transmission service.
All this research is for the benefit of future missions at NASA, which could lead to more permanent fixtures on the moon or beyond someday.
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"We intend to prove that cellular technologies can provide the reliable, high-capacity and efficient connectivity needed for future crewed and uncrewed missions to the Moon and eventually Mars," says Thierry E. Klein, president of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia. "Cellular technology has irrevocably transformed the way we communicate on Earth. There’s no reason it can’t do the same for communications on other worlds."
If you're anything like me, you'll want to watch the rocket launch with the 4G payload onboard. Here you go:
Watch live: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches IM-2 Moon mission from Kennedy Space Center - YouTube
Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.
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