Tag Archives: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Tech

First Lunar Network Station – NASA Selects Nokia To Install 4G Network On Moon

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Do you want to call someone on the moon? No, I’m not crazy as recently it was announced that NASA has selected Nokia, a Finnish company which was once a leading telecom company all over the world, to build a network station on the Moon, cool right? It has been over 50 years since the first lunar landing but scientists are still working extremely hard to build stations on the moon for exploring space which is still a mystery to humans.


$14.1 Million Contract and Tipping Point:


NASA gave Nokia a $14.1 million contract to install an “ultra-compact, low –power, space-hardened” wireless 4G network on the Moon as a part of Nasa’s Artemis program which involves various plans to establish stations in which human can work on the Moon by 2030. The U.S based space company has selected a total of 14 companies including Nokia, SpaceX, SSL Robotics, etc for its Moon mission and a total of $370 million is allocated for its Tipping Point program.

Artemis program:


The main target of the Artemis program is to send humans to Moon by 2024 where astronauts will begin carrying out different experiments and procedures to develop its first mission of sending humans to Mars. In its official statement, NASA said, “… this 4G system can support communication on Moon at a longer distance, faster speed and in the better way”.


However previously in 2018, Nokia had tried to launch an LTE network on the moon. It was a collaboration between PTScientists, a German space company, and Vodafone UK but that plan was never implemented due to some reasons.


Bell Labs in their Twitter thread said that the astronauts will use a wireless data network for transmission of data, controlling of lunar rovers, and real-time navigation so that high-definition videos of Earth can be made and seen through this network.


Small and Compact Cell Towers:


The 4G network on earth consists of large cell towers with giant generators but BellLabs has helped in creating a much smaller and compact cell tower that can be easily packed in the spaceship and transported to the moon.


Can Tolerate Brutal Environmental Conditions:


Nokia’s Lunar network station consists of an LTE- base station with EPC (Evolved Packet Core) functionalities, highly reliable operations, RF antennas, LTE user appliances, and control software. The company claims that the network will be designed in such a unique way that it can tolerate the extreme environmental conditions while launching and landing of the spaceship.


Future Plans:


In the future, Nokia has decided to further convert this 4G technology to a more rapid 5G network, so that communication can be made easier and faster in space. If these plans work out well, then astronauts would be able to send live pictures of space to Earth and the communication barrier would be diminished with the possibility of exploring different planets too.
New technologies are being made and scientists are trying hard to solve the mysteries involving space and our universe.


Gadgets

NASA awards US$106 million to US small businesses

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Image courtesy of Billy Brown on Flickr, under a Creative Commons 2.0 license

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has awarded US$106 million in funding to 142 proposals from 129 US small businesses across 28 states and the District of Columbia as part of the second phase of its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the agency said on 14 May.

Selected projects include solar panels that deploy like venetian blinds that can be used as a surface power source for crewed missions to the moon and Mars; sensor technology for autonomous entry, descent and precision landing on planetary surfaces; and a type of permanent magnet that creates a bonding force between two halves with no moving parts, enabling in-space assembly of large platforms.

NASA said it selected the successful proposals “based on a range of criteria, including technical merit and feasibility, as well as the organizations’ experience, qualifications, and facilities” as well as “effectiveness of proposed work plans and the commercial potential of the technologies”.

“Small businesses play an important role in our science and exploration endeavors,” Jim Reuter, acting associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in a statement. “NASA’s diverse community of partners, including small businesses across the country, helps us achieve our mission and cultivate the U.S. economy.

“Their innovations will help America land the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024, establish a sustainable presence on the lunar surface a few years later, and pursue exciting opportunities for going to Mars and beyond,” he added.

The SBIR is a three phase program with phase one work and results providing a “sound basis for the continued development, demonstration and delivery” of the “proposed innovation” in phase two and follow-up efforts. Only small businesses awarded phase one contracts are eligible to apply for phase two.

Phase two is focused on the actual “development, demonstration and delivery” of the products selected in phase one, and the contracts awarded in this phase last for 24 months with maximum funding of US$750,000 available. NASA said that the contracts are “chosen as a result of competitive evaluations and based on selection criteria”. Phase three is the “commercialization of innovative technologies, products and services” resulting from phase one or two contract.

The SBIR and its sister program, the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), are intended to “encourage small businesses and research institutions to develop innovative ideas that meet the specific research and development needs of the federal government”.

The two programs aim to “stimulate technological innovation in the private sector, increase the commercial application of research results, and encourage participation of socially and economically disadvantaged companies and women-owned small businesses”.

NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley manages the SBIR and STTR programs for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). The STMD is responsible for developing the “cross-cutting, pioneering new technologies and capabilities” needed by the agency to achieve its current and future missions.