Nokia and NASA are preparing to launch a 4G network on the Moon

Telephone communications from the Moon will soon be possible. Nokia, along with NASA, is preparing to launch a 4G mobile network on the moon later this year, hoping to expand lunar discovery opportunities and ultimately pave the way for a human presence on the moon’s satellite planet.

The Finnish telecommunications group plans to launch the network on a SpaceX rocket in the coming months, Nokia senior engineer Luis Maestro Ruiz De Temino told reporters at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The network will be powered by a base station with an antenna located on the Nova-C lunar lander, developed by the American space company Intuitive Machines, as well as by a solar-powered rover.

An LTE connection will be established between the lander and the rover. The infrastructure will land in the Shackleton crater, which is located along the southern slope of the Moon.

Nokia says the technology is designed to withstand the extreme conditions of space. The network will be used as part of NASA’s Artemis program, which has aimed to send the first human astronauts to the surface of the Moon since 1972. No decision has been made on how NASA will use the network, a Nokia spokesman said.

“The goal is to show that ground-based networks can meet the communications needs of future space missions,” Nokia said, adding that its network will allow astronauts to communicate with each other and with mission control, as well as remotely control the rover and broadcast live broadcasts.