The moon is getting a cell tower. Part Time Scientists, a German company planning to send a lander and rovers to the moon in late 2018, will use LTE technology to communicate with Earth. According to Space.com, the team’s spacecraft, Alina, will land at the site of Apollo 17, NASA’s final Apollo mission. As rovers travel the moon’s surface, they will relay information back to Alina, which will serve as a cell tower during the mission. Using LTE communications will be particularly useful in future lunar missions, especially if the European Space Agency continues with its plans to build a lunar village.
Karsten Becker, head of Part Time’s embedded electronics development and integration department, explained his team was working closely with Vodafone on the project. He said, “The two rovers are essentially mobile phones that will communicate our video stream to Alina, which serves as an LTE base station, and Alina will communicate the data to us. Using the LTE modem to transmit our data is much more energy efficient than using direct Earth communication.” Each rover uses solar panels to obtain 90 watts of energy. Normally, half would be used to communicate directly with Earth. Although the equipment will most likely be destroyed by cold temperatures during the lunar night, the information gathered will be used to construct permanent telecommunications infrastructure.
Published August 14, 2017
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