Moon to have 4G network by 2019
Berlin: The moon will have its first 4G cell phone network in 2019, the network builder Vadafone has said.
The German branch of the multinational telecommunication company has teamed up with Nokia to do the mission, London-headquartered Vadafone said in a statement on Tuesday.
The network is to support a private lunar rover mission by PTScientists, a private space company based in Berlin, which plans to launch a lander and two small rovers to the moon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Xinhua news agency reported.
The PTScientists said their team is committed to bringing down the cost of space exploration and democratising access to the moon.
The moon rover plan aims to study the lunar rover used by the Apollo astronauts during their historic landing in December 1972.
Nokia will create a space-grade Ultra Compact Network that is said to be the lightest ever developed - weighing around one kg, the same as a bag of sugar, according to the statement.
The planned network will enable PTScientists' lander to broadcast a live video from lunar surface to the audience on earth and facilitate the communication among the lander and rovers.
Under previous communication technologies used in moon exploration, such as analogue radio, transmitting data consumes considerable energy reserves and requires rovers to be stationary.
"The great thing about this... is that it saves so much power, and the less energy we use sending data, the more we have to do science!" said Robert Bohme, CEO and Founder of PTScientists.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
India, China decide to resume Kailash Mansarovar Yatra
New Delhi, Jan 27 (PTI): India and China on Monday decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra as the two sides agreed to take certain people-centric steps to "stabilise and rebuild" ties.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said this following Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri's talks with his Chinese counterpart Sun Weidong in Beijing.
It said the two sides also agreed in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries.
"As agreed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping at their meeting in Kazan in October, the two sides reviewed the state of India-China bilateral relations comprehensively and agreed to take certain people-centric steps to stabilize and rebuild ties," the MEA said.
"In this context, the two sides decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra in the summer of 2025," it said.
The MEA said the two sides also agreed to hold an early meeting of the India-China expert level mechanism to discuss resumption of provision of hydrological data and other cooperation pertaining to trans-border rivers.
It said the two sides agreed to take appropriate measures to further promote and facilitate people-to-people exchanges, including media and think-tank interactions.
"They agreed in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries; the relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date," the MEA said.
