Startup to Put Cellphone Tower on the Moon

The German company Part Time Scientists
,
which originally competed for the Google Lunar X Prize race to the moon
, plans
to send a lander with a rover in late 2018 to visit the landing site of
Apollo 17. (Launched in 1972, this was NASA's final Apollo mission to the
moon.) Instead of using a complex dedicated telecommunication system to
relay data from the rover to the Earth, the company will rely on LTE
technology the same system used on Earth for mobile phone communications.

.. According to Becker, Part Time Scientists plans to conduct a second
mission around 2020 that would carry LTE terminals designed to survive in
the harsh lunar environment for extended periods of time. The company is
closely cooperating with the European Space Agency, which has proposed a
lunar village concept
that
would lead to permanent human presence on the surface of the moon. The
agency's plan would let all nations and entities contribute to the overall
operations with their unique skills and expertise.
https://www.space.com/37753-calling-the-moon-cell-phone-
tower.html?utm_source=notification

Part Time Scientists
, which originally competed for the Google Lunar X Prize
race to the moon
, plans to send a lander with a rover in late 2018 to visit the landing site of Apollo 17. (Launched in 1972, this was NASA's final Apollo mission to the moon.) Instead of using a complex dedicated telecommunication system to relay data from the rover to the Earth, the company will rely on LTE technology the same system used on Earth for mobile phone communications.
..
According to Becker, Part Time Scientists plans to conduct a second mission around 2020 that would carry LTE terminals designed to survive in the harsh lunar environment for extended periods of time. The company is closely cooperating with the European Space Agency, which has
proposed a lunar village concept
that would lead to permanent human presence on the surface of the moon. The agency's plan would let all nations and entities contribute to the overall operations with their unique skills and expertise.
https://www.space.com/37753-
calling-the-moon-cell-phone-
tower.html?utm_source=
notification