Inside the stack · 03
Who builds Starship’s road to the Moon?
Starship’s first orbital cargo flight flew September 28. Follow the path to Moon cargo through HDR, Lerch Bates, Thompson, Axiom Space, Lockheed Martin, Toyota and JAXA.
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01 / Surface award
Modulate Space builds the next Network-in-a-Box
~$38M FFP · NASA Glenn · 80GRC026C0017 · Boerne, TX
NASA Glennawards →Modulate Space 5G NIB
Modulate Space is the named contractor for NASA Glenn's lunar 5G path. The public company lede and the sole-source notice also record an also-known-as of Modul8 and a former Nokia Bell Labs Space Communication Solutions line. On this catalogue the company hop is Modulate Space, not a second firm. The job is an enable and ground-tech path with a flight demonstration window, not a CLPS lander task order.
What NASA is buying is a standards-based surface cell that can grow. Lab first: prove the Network-in-a-Box, the user equipment, Wi-Fi 6, and the hybrid architecture on Earth through January 2028. Then fly: put the box on a lander, put user equipment on a rover or hopper, close the 1 to 2 kilometer link on the Moon, and measure how the radio actually behaves in lunar dust and geometry. That measurement is the point. Future Moon Base surface ops need models calibrated on the real surface, not only in a chamber.
The honest gap stays on the card. Flight day is a window through the end of 2028, not a named NET. The host lander is empty. Package dollars are the award above, not a unit cost for the box. Keep this hop separate from Nokia's flown 4G system on Intuitive Machines' second lander, even where talent or prior lab lines overlap in the public notice language. NASA: 5G for the Moon ↗ Award record 80GRC026C0017 ↗
lunar 5G job ↗ unassigned 5G cargo ↗ Modulate Space on Moon Imports ↗
02 / Surface heritage
Nokia already flew a lunar cell
4G/LTE LSCS · IM-2 · Tipping Point ~$14.1M class · flown March 2025
Nokia Bell Labsflew →LSCS Network-in-a-Box
Before 5G, the Moon already had a cellular Network-in-a-Box. Nokia Bell Labs built the Lunar Surface Communications System (LSCS), a space-hardened 4G/LTE network, for Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission in March 2025. Public reporting puts the NASA STMD Tipping Point path in the $14.1 million class. The payload's job was lander-to-surface links for users such as Lunar Outpost's MAPP rover and hoppers.
IM-2 tipped after landing. The surface window was short. Nokia and Intuitive Machines still reported that the cellular network reached the Moon and met some key mission objectives. MAPP's surface deploy was blocked by the tip. The catalogue keeps that honesty: first cellular network on the lunar surface, limited power and time, not a finished Moon Base campus network.
That flown 4G hop is why the Modulate award reads as a next step rather than a first try. Same product idea, Network-in-a-Box on a lander, user equipment on surface vehicles, different generation and a longer funded demo arc. Do not merge the two companies or the two flights. IM-2 owns Nokia LSCS. Modulate's lander is still unnamed. Nokia × Intuitive Machines release ↗
Nokia LSCS job ↗ IM-2 LSCS cargo ↗ Nokia on Moon Imports ↗ IM-2 flight ↗
03 / Orbit standards
LunaNet and LCRNS turn relays into a service
LunaNet standards · LCRNS commercial relays · IM first provider (2024)
NASA SCaNselects →Intuitive Machines LCRNS
Surface cells still need a path home when Earth is blocked. NASA, ESA, and JAXA frame LunaNet as shared standards so government, commercial, and international systems can operate as one cooperative network at the Moon. Networking, navigation, detection and information, and radio or optical science sit under that umbrella. LunaNet is not a single satellite. It is the rulebook that lets many providers plug in.
NASA's first LunaNet-class implementation path is the Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems project, or LCRNS, under the Space Communications and Navigation program. Relays in orbit around the Moon cover places where Earth is not in view, especially the south pole and far side. Once operational, those relays are meant to sit inside NASA's Near Space Network, the government and commercial assets that support missions within about 1.25 million miles of Earth.
In 2024 NASA competitively selected Intuitive Machines under the Near Space Network Services contract as the first commercial LCRNS service provider. The catalogue job is the multi-mission lunar relay path across later IM flights. Service dollars and individual seat prices stay empty. Interoperability runs through the LunaNet Interoperability Specification, so later providers can join without inventing a private dialect. That is the orbital half of the same workplace Modulate is building toward on the surface: bits that move when a crater rim or the lunar far side cuts the Earth line. NASA: LunaNet ↗ NASA Goddard: LCRNS ↗
04 / Commercial relay seat
Lunar Pathfinder already sold a relay seat on Elytra
ESA anchor · SSTL build · ~$23.5M class · BG-M2 / Elytra NET ~2027
ESA / SSTLfly →Lunar Pathfinder
Before LCRNS relays are operational, a commercial relay seat is already sold on Firefly's dual-spacecraft stack. ESA and SSTL fly Lunar Pathfinder on Blue Ghost Mission 2 / Elytra, targeted no earlier than 2027. Elytra carries Blue Ghost and Pathfinder into orbit around the Moon, deploys them, then Blue Ghost continues to a far-side landing while Elytra and Pathfinder cover relay for polar and far-side ops without a direct Earth line of sight. Pathfinder talks to lunar surface and orbit assets on dual S-band and relays to Earth on X-band.
Public package figures on the record put the ESA anchor path in the $23.5 million class, about €20 million over a multi-year service reported from the 2021 anchor-customer path. A UKSA-backed GNSS receiver on Pathfinder, built with EECL, also tries to lock weak GPS and Galileo signals at the Moon. Navigation truth and relay service ride the same prior Elytra residual that Mission 3 later sells to compute. For this communications cut, Pathfinder is the proof that orbit around the Moon is already a product floor, not only a government instrument bay. Firefly: Blue Ghost Mission 2 ↗ ESA BSGN: Lunar Pathfinder ↗
Lunar Pathfinder job ↗ Pathfinder GNSS ↗ Blue Ghost Mission 2 ↗ SSTL on Moon Imports ↗
05 / Gateway-class orbit
CAPSTONE proved a Gateway-class orbit can be flown
Flown · 28 June 2022 launch · Advanced Space ops · CAPSTONE 02 NET 2027
Advanced Space / NASAoperated →CAPSTONE
Advanced Space operates CAPSTONE for NASA: a CubeSat that entered and characterized a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), the same orbit family planned for Gateway. Launch was 28 June 2022 on Rocket Lab Electron with Lunar Photon transfer. The pathfinder covers timing, propulsion, and CAPS peer-to-peer navigation in cislunar space. Named builders on the public stack include Terran Orbital for the 12U bus, Stellar Exploration for propulsion, Space Dynamics Lab for the Iris radio, Tethers Unlimited for the cross-link radio, and Orion Space Solutions for the chip-scale atomic clock.
It is not a surface cell, and it is not a data center. It is the public demonstration that a small commercial stack can live in a useful orbit around the Moon and return navigation and communications truth for later vehicles. NASA later named Advanced Space as prime for CAPSTONE 02, announced path NET 2027. Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory supplies the communications system on that follow-on, including direct-to-Earth radios and the crosslink between the two spacecraft. The NRHO enable rail stays open even while Gateway station work is paused. NASA: CAPSTONE ↗
CAPSTONE pathfinder ↗ CAPSTONE 02 SDL radios ↗ CAPSTONE flight ↗ Advanced Space on Moon Imports ↗
06 / Other orbital paths
Named, proposed, or on hold
ispace expected · Vast proposed · Gateway paused March 2026
Orbit boardholds →relay paths without a Modulate lander
Three more hops sit on the orbital board without becoming the Modulate lander story.
ispace Mission 4 is expected to deploy a communications relay into lunar orbit to support polar payload ops and the Lunar Connect data-relay service path, with ops tied to Mission 4 NET 2029. The company language is "expected to deploy." Bus OEM stays empty until named. Lunar Connect relay job ↗
Vast Lunar Programs, opened 23 September 2026, proposes a communications and positioning constellation for continuous south pole coverage, framed as a complement to NASA's planned LCRNS network and a way to reduce pressure on shared Deep Space Network assets. Flight day is not public. Mission slugs stay empty. That is a product-line vision on the record, not a manifested lunar launch. Vast south-pole comms job ↗
Gateway still names an ESA lunar communications contribution on HALO for high-rate links between the lunar surface and the station. NASA paused Gateway work in March 2026. Treat HALO communications as a named partner contribution on a paused station stack, not as a live NET for this article. HALO lunar communications ↗
Forward look
What the two layers are for
Read together, the public record is no longer only a lander modem and a Deep Space Network pass. On the surface, Nokia proved a cellular Network-in-a-Box can reach the Moon, and Modulate is funded to take a 5G and Wi-Fi 6 box through lab proof and a late-2028 surface flight demo over about 1 to 2 kilometers. Above the surface, LunaNet sets the interoperability rules, Intuitive Machines is the first commercial LCRNS relay provider under the Near Space Network, Lunar Pathfinder sells a relay seat on Elytra, and CAPSTONE already flew the halo orbit later vehicles need.
What this article does not claim: a named CLPS lander for Modulate, an operational Moon Base campus network, Modul8 as a separate company, or a flying Gateway. The hop that is live today is the ~$38 million Glenn award, the two performance windows, the unassigned surface cargo card, and the orbital enable rail already densified beside it.
For builders of radios, antennas, user equipment, and long-lived relay buses, the workplace is split across dirt and orbit on purpose. The surface cell moves bits between a lander and the vehicles around it. The orbital layer keeps those bits moving when Earth disappears behind a crater rim. Both have to work before a Moon Base can stay busy through the night and across the far side.
Open the News kit · company card for Modulate Space