A little glimpse into the future, maybe in 15 or twenty years, maybe a little later: When the first tourists land on the moon, check in at the Hotel Luna and at the latest then want to post their first selfie on a social network, then they can be relatively be sure that this works. From there you can access the earthly Internet and also make calls with your smartphone. And if there should be something like rental cars there at some point, then vacationers can use navigation signals to orientate themselves on the roads of the moon.
The moon is still desolate and empty, but some companies and organizations are already laying the foundations for colonizing the moon. With the Artemis missions of the US space agency Nasa, astronauts are supposed to land on the moon again in the middle of the decade. And unlike 50 years ago, this time people want to stay. In addition to numerous research projects, there is also a desire to mine raw materials commercially there – and as early as the 1960s the Hilton Group was thinking about a hotel on the moon. Analysts see a billion-dollar business on the moon. According to Northern Sky Research, at least 140 moon missions are planned worldwide by the end of the decade, with a total volume of around 42 billion dollars. Not only Americans and Europeans want to go to the moon, Japan, China and India also have corresponding plans.
On the moon, not only buildings for living and working will be necessary, but also a supply of energy, oxygen and telecommunications, for example. In addition to the space agencies Nasa and Esa, some companies are also dealing with such topics. For example, founder Sebastian Ströhl wants to have the first satellites for broadband Internet in space by the middle of the decade. However, not as a competitor to Elon Musk’s Starlink, but around 380,000 kilometers further in the lunar orbit.
A satellite constellation for broadband communications on the moon could also send fast signals to earth.
(Photo: Illustration: Plus Ultra Space Outposts/oh)
“We have to create an infrastructure that enables a sustainable economy on the moon – this includes transport, communication and navigation,” says the 45-year-old founder. While other German companies such as Levity or OHB are getting ready to one day transport cargo to the moon, Ströhl’s start-up Plus Ultra Space Outpost has set itself the goal of first creating the conditions for people to settle there. “We want to become part of the lunar economy and simplify missions,” he says.
The three founders of the Spanish-German-Luxembourgish start-up, who are based in Madrid and Munich, among other places, have been working on a business model based on the moon for some time, says Ströhl. The signal for their lunar Internet is said to come from eight satellites orbiting the moon in two orbits at an altitude of 6,000 kilometers. Plus Ultra wants to offer its customers a bandwidth of 100 megabits/second, possibly also via radio masts in a second expansion stage. They could then supply signals to scientific rover missions as well as to research stations or commercial projects.
The founding company Plus Ultra wants to start next year
The founders also want to offer a navigation function with their satellites – i.e. Galileo or GPS for the moon. “Navigation is important because it significantly minimizes the risks of the missions,” says Ströhl. An accuracy of two kilometers is currently possible via complicated position calculations on the moon, “we want to get down to 20 to two meters”.
Ströhl estimates that the constellation will cost around 150 million euros. A financing round is currently underway, in which the founders want to raise 5.6 million euros to complete the design and make upfront payments to the suppliers. “We would like to operate the satellites, but we leave the construction to experienced manufacturers,” says Ströhl. He expects that they will soon be able to recoup the investments once things really get going on the moon and the customers come. “We make a profit relatively quickly with the first missions,” he says optimistically.
Surrey Satellite Technology plans to launch a satellite called the Lunar Pathfinder in two years for communications services and navigation tests to the Moon, the first step for ESA’s Moonlight programme.
(Photo: ESA/oh)
Even if the founders of Plus Ultra are not the only ones who came up with the idea of connecting the moon. The Finnish mobile operator Nokia wants to start at the end of this year at the earliest to the moon in order to set up a 4G network there for the future Nasa missions of the Artemis program. “Reliable, resilient and high-performance communications networks are key to supporting a sustained human presence on the lunar surface,” said Nokia Chief Technology Officer Marcus Weldon. It should be the first step towards a Lunanet, a communication and navigation network that NASA wants to establish.
The British Airbus subsidiary Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) is also working on a concept for communication and navigation data on the moon and wants to launch the first satellite in 2024 to support a robotic mission. The background is also the Moonlight program of the European space agency Esa, which commissioned two industrial consortia to develop concepts. In addition to SSTL, these include Airbus, OHB and Thales Alenia Space. ESA director David Parker, responsible for astronautical and robotic space travel, sees the moon as the “eighth continent” with new economic opportunities. “Maybe someday a permanent lunar facility will be established where we can use the moon as a place for research and innovation,” he says. The Moonlight program can help build the necessary infrastructure.
An office on the moon
Nokia and Vodafone had already planned an LTE network on the moon a few years ago, back then in cooperation with the Berlin start-up PT Scientists, which developed a lunar module but has since gone bankrupt in 2019. “There are some competitors, but there will be room for several constellations on the moon,” Ströhl believes. It is important to him that the radio frequencies on the moon are regulated, “we don’t want a wild west mentality there”.
In the long term, Plus Ultra also wants to connect production and storage facilities as well as take-off and landing zones with roads. Illustration: Martin Vanek/Plus Ultra Space Outposts/oh
(Photo: Illustration: Martin Vanek)
Plus Ultra would like to later earn money with other infrastructure components. “Our long-term goal is additional services such as orbital traffic management, take-off and landing zones and roads,” says Ströhl. The company wants to get at least as close as possible to the Earth’s satellite in just two years. A first satellite, which Plus Ultra wants to launch at the end of 2023 with a small rocket from the Rocket Factory Augsburg, is to fly to the moon with its own electric drive and then start trial operations there. The founders want to do more flights with the Japanese start-up I-Space, which will bring the satellites and infrastructure directly to the moon and in return use the services of Plus Ultra.
It is quite possible that Plus Ultra will then also settle on the moon, as Ströhl suggests. “We have made it very clear that we will be the first to open an office on the moon.”