As part of the space agency's Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence there, NASA chose Nokia to build a 4 G network on the moon.

The Finnish company will develop the technology to be integrated into NASA lunar landers and used for remote control, as well as high-definition video streaming.

The Artemis program, named after the mythological sister of Apollo, the first moon mission's namesake, aims to take the first woman and the next man taken to the lunar surface by 2024.

The nod was given to SpaceX and Blue Origin to create the new lunar landers that will take the astronauts out of orbit to the moon's surface.

Private spaceflight companies owned by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos will simultaneously develop competing systems alongside Dynetics, a third company, but NASA will ultimately choose one.

Nokia said its technology would be used to provide connectivity from "voice and video communication capabilities" through to "deployment and control of robotic and sensor payloads" for "any activity that astronauts need to perform."

Marcus Weldon, the company's chief technology officer, said: "We are now building on the moon the first-ever cellular communications network."

"In order to promote a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface, reliable, resilient, and high-capacity communications networks will be key," Mr. Weldon added.

The lunar network of Nokia is slightly different from what it uses on Earth, primarily because the kit itself needs to be able to "resist the harsh launch and lunar landing conditions and operate in extreme space conditions."

But, other than that, 4 G, including a base station, radio antennas, and user equipment, will be normal-although it 's not clear how different this equipment will be from ordinary smartphones.