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upstart writes:

JPL and Argotec's relay satellites could deliver bandwidth for more than 90 missions:

Earth's moon is the target of more missions than at any time since the Apollo era, by both space agencies and commercial entities. NASA, for example, has plans to visit the moon using both robots and humans, and is also considering—with international collaborators—a small orbiting outpost in the next decade. This facility, known as the Lunar Gateway, would store supplies, host visiting astronauts, and facilitate communication between the moon and Earth.

Although the gateway is perhaps the most ambitious of the projects planned, it's only one of over 90 lunar missions being considered for the years between now and 2030. Of course, not all these planned missions will materialize, but many—if not most—will happen in some form. And this is only the beginning: We anticipate that interest in the moon will accelerate, eventually culminating in a permanent human presence on the surface.

[...] Italian aerospace company Argotec and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are collaborating on the concept of an orbiting relay satellite constellation called Andromeda. Argotec (at which Balossino is head of the R&D unit) is developing spacecraft concepts and JPL (at which Davarian is a project manager) is providing subsystems such as radios and antennas. The approach consists of 24 relay satellites to be placed in a constellation using 4 orbits, with 6 satellites per orbit. This configuration would provide continuous coverage to the poles, and near-continuous coverage everywhere else, with only occasional slight gaps. With this relay system, missions anywhere on the lunar surface would have reliable, consistent connections to Earth.

[...] Our proposed relay network would only be a first step. In a more distant future, humans on the moon should be able to send and receive texts, make phone calls, and stream data at will. Similarly, robots and sensors should be wirelessly connected just like IoT devices are on Earth. Robots would be controlled remotely, and sensors would automatically upload their measured data.

However, this vision of lunar connectivity may take generations of lunar-communication networks to emerge. Nevertheless, we believe we can look forward to a time when there will be human colonies on the moon engaged in scientific, technical, and commercial activities in a robust wireless environment.

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