Can you hear me now, on the moon? Not yet, but Nokia has just signed onto a team that aims to extend 4G coverage to the lunar surface as early as next year and feed back live HD video.
The Finnish company says it will be Vodafone’s technology partner in an industry-supported moonshot led by PTScientists, a German-based team that was one of the competitors in the soon-to-be-ended Google Lunar X Prize competition.
Even though PTScientists couldn’t make the deadline to go for the prize, it’s still working on a plan to send its Alina lander and two Audi Quattro rovers to the lunar surface. The team has a contract with Seattle-based Spaceflight to ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket or an alternative by as early as 2019.
