Nokia, Vodafone To Bring 4G To the Moon (reuters.com)

According to Reuters, the moon will get its first mobile phone network next year, enabling high-definition streaming from the landscape back to earth. "Vodafone Germany, network equipment maker Nokia and carmaker Audi said on Tuesday they were working together to support the mission, 50 years after the first NASA astronauts walked on the moon." From the report: Vodafone said it had appointed Nokia as its technology partner to develop a space-grade network which would be a small piece of hardware weighing less than a bag of sugar. The companies are working with Berlin-based company PTScientists on the project, with a launch scheduled in 2019 from Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Vodafone said. One executive involved said the decision to build a 4G network rather than a state-of-the-art 5G network was taken because the next generation networks remain in the testing and trial stage and are not stable enough to ensure they would work from the lunar surface.

Comments

Vaporware, likely hoax

[braindrainbahrain]

This looks like a ploy to generate investment money for PTScientists, a company that claims to have developed a spacecraft capable of delivering two rovers, or up to 100 kg of payload, to the lunar surface. No mention of a rocket, rocket tests or any aerospace industry activity at all, except for designing two rovers, probably in their basement.