27 Highlights to "3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Mobile Telecommunications Technology on the Moon" https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dKOj-Yg-h4c1ZjPhDel3aO0OIIxCKiOq/view?usp=drivesdk

Abstract— Under NASA’s Artemis program, NASA is planning

to send astronauts back to the Moon in the next couple of years.

Near term missions will be analogous but much more

sophisticated versions of the last couple of Apollo missions.

However, unlike Apollo, this time NASA intends to put the

infrastructure in place to support long term human presence

and eventual industrialization of the Moon. To make this vision

a reality, NASA plans to collaborate with commercial and

international partners as much as possible as opposed to

developing, building, and operating equipment on its own.

Lunar infrastructure will eventually be built over time by many

organizations, public and private, to support sustained human

exploration, science, and industrial activities. Obviously, this

vision for the future will be impossible without a robust lunar

communications and navigation system that can support many

users with varying degrees of services. On Earth, most people

are very familiar with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project

(3GPP) 5G mobile telecommunications technology. NASA’s

Space Technology Mission Directorate and NASA’s Space

Communications and Navigation office would like to see a lunar

communications and navigation network with similar

capabilities to the cellular communication networks most of us

enjoy today. Building such a network will require participation

by many organizations. This paper will provide an overview of

NASA’s interest in using 5G and beyond on the lunar surface;

it will also describe current work based on 3GPP standards

within NASA or funded by NASA, such as Nokia’s upcoming

Tipping Point demonstration of 4G / LTE on the lunar surface.

6. SUMMARY

In the not-so-distant future, there will be a sustained human

and robotic presence on the Moon. As called out in NASA’s

“Moon To Mars Objectives” that was recently published, a

robust communications and navigation infrastructure will be

required to support and enable this vision. Like the Earth’s

internet, this infrastructure will need to increase in size and

probably complexity as the number of users and applications

grow. This “Lunar Internet of Things” will be a combination

of networks and services with multiple provider systems,

owned and operated by a combination of international and

commercial entities. LunaNet is NASA’s overall architecture

that envisions this robust communications and navigation

infrastructure. A key component will be a lunar surface

wireless network to support this upcoming sustained human

and robotic presence. The authors believe that 3GPP cellular

technologies and standards provide the ideal solution for this

lunar surface wireless network. A space qualified lunar 3GPP

network provides increased sustainable data rates, range,

mobility, reliability, and scalability over other wireless

technologies such as Wi-Fi, and fills a crucial role in the

overall LunaNet architecture to bring the lunar surface closer

to Earth.