NASA, Nokia’s 4G lunar network could enable historic ice discovery

4G communication on the Moon

Nokia’s Bell Labs is building the 4G system using readily available commercial components. It will be placed in a lunar lander built by Intuitive Machines. Once the lander reaches its destination, the network will connect it to two small roaming vehicles that will search for ice at the lunar south pole.

One of those vehicles, the Lunar Outpost rover, will explore the Shackleton Connecting Ridge. The other, the Micro-Nova hopper, will drive into a shadowed crater to scan for the first close-up evidence of lunar ice.

The world’s space powers are racing to the lunar south pole, as it is believed to have an abundance of water ice in its shadowed craters. This, alongside crucial infrastructure like Nokia’s 4G system, could serve as a building block for permanent lunar habitats.

It’s fitting, therefore, that Nokia’s test system will help Micro-Nova beam evidence back to the lander. From there, it will be transmitted back to Earth via NASA’s Deep Space Network.

Paving the way for permanent lunar habitats

Nokia’s 4G network will have to work effectively in the harsh lunar environment, with its extreme shifts in temperature. 

NASA chose Bell Labs as part of its Tipping Point initiative, which is designed to enable the development of technologies for the future of space exploration. Bell Labs was given a $14.1 million grant in 2020. In January this year, meanwhile, DARPA selected Nokia to work on a communications services infrastructure that will serve as the “framework for the lunar economy.”

In a recent interview with CNN, Walt Engelund, deputy associate administrator for programs at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, explained that “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.”

“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.”

In February 2024, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus became the first US lunar lander to reach the Moon in over 50 years, and the first US lander to reach the lunar south pole. It is also the first successful private lunar lander in history, though it made a slightly awkward sideways landing.

By sending NASA and Nokia’s 4G system to the Moon, Intuitive Machines will help to lay the groundwork for the Artemis program’s permanent lunar habitats.

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