Build the first mobile phone network on the moon next year

The first mobile phone network to launch high-tech satellite-to-Earth broadcasting is being built on the moon next year as part of a project to support the first privately funded moon mission.

Vodafone Germany, Nokia Networks and Audi have said they are working together to support the mission,50 years after the first astronauts from the US space agency NASA landed on the moon.
Vodafone said it had chosen Nokia as a technology partner to develop a space-ready network that would be a small body weighing about one kilogram.

Vodafone said that the companies are working with BT Scientists in Berlin to launch the mission in 2019 from Cape Canaveral on a Space X 9 Falcon.