This is not a drill. Soon you'll have the ability to post memes from the moon thanks to three companies back on earth who are set to put a cell-phone on our nearest heavenly neighbor.
Vodafone Germany is teaming up with Nokia and Audi to help install equipment that would enable high-definition streaming from places like the Sea of Tranquility back to earth. The project is part of an effort to back the first privately funded moon mission.
Vodafone said the mission would use a "space-grade network" that would use hardware weighing less than a bag of sugar. The three companies are working with Berlin-based PTScientists with a planned mission launch date scheduled for 2019 on a SpaceX Falcon9 rocket.
The lunar cell phone service would run on a 4G network as opposed to the newer, more state-of-the-art 5G. Engineers say 5G networks are still being tested on earth and engineers aren't sure whether they would be stable enough for a space-based platform.
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