Nokia to build moon’s first mobile network for Nasa
- Finnish telecoms firm awarded US$14.1 million contract as part of US space agency’s plan to establish long-term human presence on lunar surface by 2030
- Nokia will help deploy ‘ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened’ 4G cellular network in late 2022
With competition among Earth’s telecoms providers as fierce as ever, equipment maker Nokia announced its expansion into a new market on Monday, winning a deal to install the first cellular network on the moon.
The Finnish equipment manufacturer said it was selected by Nasa to deploy an “ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened” wireless 4G network on the lunar surface, as part of the US space agency’s plan to establish a long-term human presence on the moon by 2030.
The US$14.1 million contract, awarded to Nokia’s US subsidiary, is part of Nasa’s Artemis programme, which aims to send the first woman, and next man, to the moon by 2024.
The astronauts will begin carrying out detailed experiments and explorations which the agency hopes will help it develop its first human mission to Mars.
Nokia’s network equipment will be installed remotely on the Moon’s surface using a lunar hopper built by Intuitive Machines in late 2022, Nokia said.
