PTScientists hits the headlines with 4G on the Moon!

It was an action-packed week for PTScientists as we attended the Mobile World Congress 2018 with Key Technology Partner Vodafone. Both ALINA and the Audi lunar quattro made the trip to Barcelona for this year’s congress, and people were delighted to hear the story of Mission to the Moon.

During the congress Vodafone Germany announced they are bringing Nokia Bell Labs onboard to create the hardware for the 4G base-station that we will deliver to the Moon. The story sparked considerable interest, and headlines such as “4G on the Moon” made it into over 2000 media reports around the world.

Sending data back to Earth requires a lot of power, meaning we would have to choose between transmitting data directly from the Audi lunar quattro, or driving it. With LTE on the Moon we can take advantage of a much more power-efficient way to transmit our precious HD-video and scientific data the short distance to our lander, ALINA. Since ALINA will be stationary on the lunar surface, and has much more power available to it, we can use it as an LTE-base station and then send the data back to Earth using traditional S-/X-band radio frequencies.

Nokia Bell Labs are working on an energy efficient base-station that weighs much less than its Earth-bound relatives. Their Ultra Compact Network solution, which will be integrated with ALINA, weighs less than 1 kg!

HRH Felipe VI, King of Spain, comes to visit ALINA at MWC18

We even got a visit from HRH Felipe  VI, the King of Spain!