While most people are aware of the array of products and services that our customers use every day, Vodafone’s engineers are also working on a number of ground-breaking technology projects around the world.

One has seen Vodafone Germany and Audi working with PT Scientists (PTS), a Berlin-based start-up to achieve the first private moon landing, create the moon’s first telecoms network and take the first ever hi res photos of the site where Neil Armstrong once took a small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind.

PTS have built the ALINA, or Autonomous Landing and Navigation Module, which will be carried to the moon on board the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and is expected to touch down near the Apollo 17 landing site.

ALINA will dispatch two connected Audi lunar quattro rovers to investigate the surface, controlled using a 4G network, set up by Vodafone.

Andreas Roth, Technical Project Leader at the Vodafone Innovation Parks Lab explains.

“The ALINA will have what we believe to be in effect the world’s smallest base station, weighing less than one kilo - the weight of a bag of sugar - and a fully integrated virtualised µ-core-network. Each lunar rover will then communicate with it using an on-board smartphone.

“There are some challenges using radio spectrum in zero gravity but our testing indicates that we should be able to broadcast using the 700 MHz frequency band (B28 or B14),” Andreas said.

The ALINA will send HD footage back to earth using a satellite link that interconnects with the PTS server in the Mission Control Centre based in Berlin.

“4G was chosen because it is highly energy efficient. The alternative satellite link would have required too much energy to operate and would have limited the mobility of the rovers as they continually repositioned the link – meaning they couldn’t move and capture video footage at the same time.

“For Vodafone it’s very much a tale of two halves. In many ways this network for two smartphones is the smallest we have ever built, but it is actually a really exciting project that will lay the groundwork of future moon missions,” Andreas added.