Coming soon: an experimental communications network on the moon

The British National Space Center in collaboration with the American space agency NASA are about to deploy a communication network on the surface of the moon, through which astronauts and robots will be able to send, in the distant future, SMS messages from the moon

After the communication networks have been deployed in the most remote corners of the earth, they are about to break through the limits of the atmosphere - and reach space: the British National Space Center personnel, in collaboration with the American space agency NASA, are about to deploy an experimental communication network on the surface of the moon. Through the network, astronauts and robots will be able to send, in the distant future, SMS messages from the moon. A system of satellites is supposed to ensure perfect reception of the messages that will be sent from the station that NASA wants to establish at the south pole of the moon - but not before 2020.

This is an even more complex challenge than the one that involved receiving an SMS message on the summit of Everest. The phone calls and messages will be transmitted through satellites that will circle the moon and ensure communication between different stations that will be established there - and between the stations that will be established on the moon and the Earth.

As part of the MoonLite mission that will be launched in 2012, a prototype version of the satellite telephone network, which is equivalent to the Inmarsat network operating on Earth, will be tested. The astronaut who will test the technology will send to Earth, through the experimental network, information from measurement devices that will be implanted in the lunar soil.

In the early stages, the system will resemble "the satellite phone network that operated on Earth in the 80s and 90s," said David Parker, director of the British National Space Center. "The robots and astronauts will have to leave the base for research missions and will need certain communication infrastructures. Operation MoonLight will be a first step towards the establishment of the future network."

The system will initially be based on one or two communication satellites, and the coverage will be in the South Pole area of ​​the Moon only. More satellites will be added in the future, which will expand the coverage areas. The download rate of the network will be three ks/h and the upload rate will be two ks/h.