To establish a permanent base on the Moon and explore its surface, NASA needs a 21st century communications infrastructure. It chose a small Houston, Texas-based commercial space company to do the job.

NASA wants to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, but right now, astronauts have to be in direct line of sight with Earth to phone home. The space agency is looking to change that with its developing Near Space Network,

The agency’s Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) program is leading efforts to create a coordinated lunar time standard, scalable to other locations in our solar system.