new delhi if records are anything to go by this one is surely special as it culminates in setting up of the first 4g network on the moon and establishing the first extraterrestrial cellular mobility that could one day be extended further to connect future robotic and human missions in space and even to mars and its an indian born in new delhi to a middleclass business family who is leading the efforts to achieve the feat that will provide mobile connectivity to nasas ambitious artemis moonlanding programnishant batra based in espoo finland is the global head of strategy and technology at the euro 22billion nokia with responsibility for also leading the technology architecture and research at bell labs which has to its credit nine nobel prize wins and five turing awardsan mba from insead business school the 1978born batra had earned his bachelors degree in computer applications from the devi ahilya university in indore he then earned a masters degree in telecommunications and a masters degree in computer science from the southern methodist university in the usask him about the lunar connectivity project awarded by nasa to nokia in october 2020 and batra starts deconstructing the challenges and opportunities but first things first can a regular call be made from the moon once the 4g network is operational or can you watch movies and videos from streaming players if you run a 4g network on the moon then this device will work there and then if somebody is carrying this device they can make a call home as long as it is legally allowed im not sure it will be legally allowed for a long long time these networks are very secure for the system highly secured and not for public use batra told toinasa which is eyeing a human landing on the moon by 2024 as a followup to the historic 1969 moonlanding mission led by neil arm strong wants to use the nokiaestablished network to help provide critical communications capabilities for tasks astronauts will need to carry out like remote control of lunar rovers realtime navigation and highdefinition video streamingwith artemis missions nasa will land the first woman and first person of colour on the moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before we will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first longterm presence on the moon then we will use what we learn on and around the moon to take the next giant leap sending the first astronauts to mars the us space agency said while talking about the mission in september 2020the idea of a cellular network is integral to the artemis plan which looks at conducting longterm work in space and carry out tasks that support life away from earthbatra whose teams are also engaged in doing cuttingedge research work in the area of 6g technologies says that the lunar network may be a reality during this year itself