NASA Backs $38 Million Effort to Build a 5G Network on the Moon

NASA has awarded Modulate Space Corporation an approximately $38 million contract to develop a lunar communications system that combines 5G with built-in Wi-Fi 6. The system is intended to advance the surface infrastructure needed to support future Moon base operations.

The firm-fixed-price contract was awarded for NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. It covers two development efforts aimed at building and demonstrating a scalable, standards-based network that can evolve as lunar surface activities expand.

The first effort focuses on a compact network-in-a-box system and a laboratory demonstration, with work running from October 1, 2026, through January 31, 2028. The second covers an integrated lunar 5G and Wi-Fi surface network, including a demonstration on the Moon, scheduled to run from November 30, 2026, through December 31, 2028. Together, the projects will develop hardware, firmware and software while allowing NASA to evaluate the system's architecture and operational performance.

The agency wants an approach that can grow with future demand on the lunar surface. Astronauts, rovers, scientific instruments and future habitats could all draw on a shared local network for exchanging data and coordinating work across a landing site.

That surface connectivity would serve a different purpose from the long-distance links carrying information between the Moon and Earth. For a future Moon base, reliable communications would be part of the basic operating infrastructure alongside power and transportation. The contract represents a development step toward that capability, with laboratory testing and a lunar demonstration still ahead.

What comes next is the laboratory demonstration of the network-in-a-box system, followed by the demonstration of the integrated 5G and Wi-Fi surface network on the Moon, with the two efforts running through 2028.