Nokia has pipped its rivals to a contract with US space agency NASA to deploy the first lunar cellular network in late 2022, in preparation for a planned manned mission two years later. Nokia was chosen because it could provide not just the 4G cellular infrastructure but also associated components developed by its Bell Labs R&D arm, to ensure that the network is fully space-hardened and tuned to the very different environmental background with no atmosphere but far greater extremes of temperature than on earth. This is part of the NASA Artemis program, whose Phase 1 plans, revealed in September 2020, include landing the first woman as well as the next man on the lunar surface in 2024. This came…