Nokia helps Intuitive Machines in its search for water on the Moon

The IM-2 lunar mission plans to accomplish many things. It will deploy the first cellular network on the Moon, it will release the first rover at the Moon’s south pole, and it will launch a satellite into lunar orbit. All these goals could have a big impact in shaping future space exploration. There is one project, however, that could have a particularly outsized impact on humankind’s journey into space.

IM-2 will be searching for ice.

When IM-2 lands near the Moon’s south pole, it will search for the first up-close evidence of ice on the lunar surface. One expected component of that ice is water, which astronauts could convert to breathable oxygen and even use to create fuel for an eventual journey to Mars.

Leading this effort is Intuitive Machines. Its Nova-C lander will be carrying two payloads that will undertake the search for ice. The first is the NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment (PRIME-1), which will drill and scan for ice directly below IM-2’s landing site at the Shackleton Connecting Ridge. The second is Intuitive Machines Micro-Nova vehicle, which will venture further afield in its quest for water. The Micro-Nova will explore the depths of a lunar crater, which is where Nokia has a part to play in this endeavor. Nokia Bell Labs will provide the critical communications links between the lunar lander and the mission vehicles – including the Micro-Nova. It’s possible that the first images of ice on the Moon could be sent over a Nokia network.

While long-range scans have sensed the presence of ice on the Moon, nothing can compare to seeing direct evidence, said Tim Crain, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Intuitive Machines.

“Finding water is one thing but seeing what form it actually takes is what we are really excited about,” Crain said. “What does that water look like? Is it in the form of water crystals? Is it a slush mixed in with the regolith? Is it a sheet like a glacier that formed in a pool? Is it in big mud-ball chunks? Finding these answers is important. Once we actually start sending humans to live on the Moon, we need to know how to extract this water so they can use it.”

Crater hopping

Working in partnership with Intuitive Machines and Lunar Outpost, Nokia is deploying the first cellular network on the Moon as part of NASA’s Tipping Point initiative. In previous blog posts, we’ve explored many aspects of the IM-2 mission, from building a network that can survive the perils of the Moon and space travel to providing the command-and-control links to Lunar Outpost’s MAPP rover. In this post, however, we are focusing on IM-2’s search for accessible water on the Moon, which would have staggering implications for all future space endeavors.

It all starts with the Micro-Nova hopper.

About the size of a duffle bag, the Micro-Nova looks like a miniature version of the Nova-C lander that will transport IM-2’s equipment to the Moon. But unlike the Nova-C, the Micro-Nova will use its hydrazine rockets in controlled bursts to propel it short distances over the lunar surface. It will “hop” from place to place, accessing areas other vehicles can’t reach.

After landing, the Nova-C spacecraft will deploy the Micro-Nova from its payload bay, after which the hopper will calibrate itself and perform systems checks. On the second Earth-day of the mission, the Micro-Nova will start hopping. It will engage in a series of increasingly longer jumps to test out its maneuvering capabilities, all in preparation for its penultimate hop. At that point, it will jump deep into a pre-determined crater near the landing site, disappearing entirely from view.

Why risk jumping into the depths of a crater? That’s where our best chances are of finding water, Crain explained. During the lunar day, the Moon is constantly bathed in direct sunlight, and with no atmosphere, there is nothing to mitigate the scorching heat. In such conditions, any surface water would vaporize into space. But at the poles, the low angle of the Sun means there are geological areas, such as craters and crevasses, that never see sunlight and remain in a constant state of deep freeze.

“The only light these places get is starlight, earthshine, and potential reflections off crater rims,” Crain said. “That deep, deep, deep cold is what scientists call a cold trap. Water could have been left in these cold traps from meteorite or comet impacts, through interactions with the solar wind, or from volcanoes that were active early in the Moon’s history. If water is present, these shadow regions are where we will find it.”

Once in the crater, the hopper will turn on its sensor arrays searching for any signs of ice. Powerful LED lights will illuminate its pitch-black surroundings, while cameras will snap images of any potential ice deposits. Then the Micro-Nova will attempt to send those pictures and data back to Earth. This is where Nokia’s network will play a pivotal role.

Connecting the Micro-Nova

Nokia’s lunar 4G/LTE system will have two primary components. The first is its base station unit, which will be integrated directly into the Nova-C lander and act as the cell-site for the Moon network. The second component will be the radio equipment installed on the two lunar vehicles, the MAPP rover and the Micro-Nova. Together they will form a network that will allow the vehicles and lander to communicate with one another. A powerful direct-to-Earth radio connection from the lander will provide a link home, allowing it to send back data and images and relay commands to the vehicles over the cellular network.

As the Micro-Nova hops its way across the lunar surface, it will maintain a constant cellular connection to the lander, allowing mission controllers back home to see what it sees and analyze the data it collects in near real-time. The tricky part comes when the hopper jumps into the crater. Upon making its descent beyond the crater rim, the Micro-Nova loses its line of sight to the Nokia base station. With most radio technologies, this would mean a complete loss of communications as the hopper’s signals run smack into lunar rock.

The plan then is for the Micro-Nova to go fully automatic when it makes its crater descent, Crain said. For about 45 minutes after landing, the hopper would take its photos and measurements. Then it would propel itself out of the crater where it would reconnect to the network and send its data back to Earth.

That’s the nominal plan, at least. Crain said, however, there is a good chance that the hopper will never lose its link to the network due to the unique capabilities the 4G/LTE network. Just as mobile signals ricochet off buildings and barriers here on Earth, allowing us to make calls when no tower is in sight, the lunar 4G/LTE base station could maintain contact with the hopper despite a crater wall between them.

“Some of the analysis done by Nokia Bell Labs and our comms team indicate that the 4G signal may be able to reach the bottom of the crater,” Crain said. “I give it even odds that we maintain that connection.”

Maintaining that connection would be a huge boon to the mission as it would allow Intuitive Machines to troubleshoot issues, make adjustments and view the Micro-Nova’s findings while the hopper is actively investigating the crater. Crain also admitted that a constant connection would also save him a considerable amount of stress. “45 minutes,” he said, “is a long time to wait.”

Uninterrupted connectivity under the most extreme conditions is a stretch goal for Nokia and Intuitive Machines, and both companies would be thrilled if they could achieve it. But Nokia’s ultimate aim in participating in IM-2 is to demonstrate the viability of cellular technologies for critical communications on the Moon and beyond. It will have ample opportunities to prove its case, whether through transmitting commands to the MAPP rover as it trundles across the lunar surface or by relaying the first images from the Moon’s south pole.

“We’re both honored and humbled to play even a small part in what could be one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the decade,” said Thierry E. Klein, President of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia. “Finding direct proof of water could be just the first of many, many discoveries if we can put all the right technology pieces together. Building the right vehicles to investigate different planets is one piece. Critical communications is another piece. There’s a big solar system out there just waiting to be explored.”

Image captions from top to bottom: 1) Rendering of the Micro-Nova hopping on the lunar surface, 2) Micro-Nova up close, 3) Intuitive Machines’ Tim Crain, 4) Rendering of the Micro-Nova in between hops