A couple of months ago, NASA signed a contract with Nokia to develop a 4G coverage project on the Moon. Astronomers are not happy with this idea. Why?
In October 2020, NASA representatives signed a $ 14.1 million contract with Nokia’s Bell Labs to develop a project for the first 4G network on the moon.
The engineers plan to use mobile coverage on a natural earth satellite instead of radio communications to provide better communication with the first colonizers of the moon.
Experts speculated that 4G would work better on the moon than on Earth, as trees, buildings or other sources of communication would not obstruct the signal there.
But recently, scientists have reported a serious problem this project could cause – radio frequency ( electromagnetic) interference from mobile coverage, which can disrupt the operation of telescopes on Earth and in orbit of our planet.
“Radio interference can be reduced at the source with appropriate shielding and improved signal emitting accuracy. Astronomers are constantly developing strategies to remove interference from their data. But this increasingly depends on the will of private companies to ensure that at least some radio frequencies are protected for astronomy, ” writes Emma Alexander, PhD in astrophysics from the University of Manchester.
In particular, this problem also applies to the new project Lunar Crater Radio Telescope, in which NASA plans to build a huge radio telescope in one of the lunar craters.
Do not forget about the problem with satellites for the global Internet coverage of SpaceX Starlink : astronomers predict that an unprecedented number of these satellites in orbit ( about 35 thousand planned) could interfere with space research.
Scientists warn that the reflected light from thousands of Starlink satellites, as well as the radio interference they create, could paralyze the operation of ground-based and orbiting telescopes, which are extremely important for scientists.
“The full constellation of Starlink satellites is likely to spell the end for ground-based microwave radio telescopes capable of scanning the sky for small radio objects,” said Swinburne University astronomer Alan Duffy.
It is possible that soon we will have to choose between ubiquitous Internet coverage ( including on the moon) and scientific research.
