PT Scientists – Cosmic Log

How tech team plans to put 4G service on the moon

The PTScientist team’s Alina lander and Audi Quattro rover are on display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. (PTScientists Photo via Twitter)

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.

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.

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PT Scientists go with Spaceflight for moonshot

PTScientists’ ALINA lander is designed to carry two Audi Lunar Quattro rovers to the moon’s surface. (PTScientists Photo)

A German team that’s going after the Google Lunar XPRIZE has secured a contract with Seattle-based Spaceflight to get its rover-carrying lander to the moon.

PTScientists, based in Berlin, announced the deal today, and Spaceflight confirmed the partnership. If the contract is verified by the $30 million contest’s organizers at XPRIZE, the group will join three other contestants in the home stretch for the top prize for commercial lunar exploration.

Spaceflight struck a similar deal last year with an Israeli-based GLXP team, SpaceIL. The two other verified teams are Moon Express and Synergy Moon.

There are 16 teams in the GLXP hunt, but they have to have verified launch contracts by the end of this year in order to stay in the competition.

The top prize of $20 million will go to the first team to send a spacecraft to the moon and have it travel more than 500 meters (1,640 feet) while sending back images and video. Other prizes are being offered as extra incentives. If no team gets to the moon by the end of 2017, all those prizes go poof.

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