NASA's lunar missions require innovative technologies to support increasing data volumes and performance enhancements of communication systems. 5G technology can provide the required support, but mission-critical and suit-to-suit communication necessitates the use of 5G Sidelink (SL). EpiSci and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute propose 5G-MOSAIC, a 5G Mission-Critical Sidelink for Autonomous and Interoperable Communications in lunar networks. 5G-MOSAIC aims to enable high-reliability and low-latency communication among mission-critical and autonomous applications in the lunar environment. It includes an infrastructure-less mode with multi-hop capabilities, as well as a multi-protocol solution to enhance communication capabilities. 5G-MOSAIC will be developed by implementing and integrating 5G SL features into OAI to produce 5GEM-SL, an OAI-based 5G emulation testbed with full SL features. Next, 5GEM-SL will be customized for lunar environments, missions, and applications. This includes a development of a lunar channel model for 5GEM-SL. The resulting testbed, 5GEM-SL-LN, will be demonstrated for representative lunar missions under various mobility scenarios and traffic loading conditions. The tool will include document with roadmap toward hardware prototype implementation for Phase II. Finally, we will design and demonstrate an AI-based 5G planning and predictive analytics tool called 5G-ANATOMY, capable of automating mission planning including 5G SL parameter configuration and resource optimization for a wide range of lunar missions. This tool utilizes AI to predict the LN performance or mission quality based on scenario configuration parameters including HW/SW parameters. Through 5G-ANATOMY, LN mission designers can quickly determine key system parameters required for a particular lunar task as well as identify necessary edge computing components to achieve desired performance. The resulting 5G-MOSAIC will be available as open source to foster collaboration.

5G-MOSAIC technologies, when fully developed and demonstrated, will offer commercially viable, cost-effective 5G SL solutions to meet the specific requirements of mission-critical communication scenarios, such as those encountered in lunar environments where connectivity can be limited or intermittent for future space missions, such as Artemis. Also, they will substantially reduce the operational complexity for mission engineers by automating various tasks of planning, scheduling and managing 5G communication resources across multiple assets.

Space-based broadband internet services demand terrestrial-grade service quality despite many spacecraft participating in data forwarding through emerging 5G technologies. We expect 5G-MOSAIC to further advance such systems by seamlessly allowing the addition of new 5G SL communication assets on the moon with significantly reduced planning. DoD will also greatly benefit for tactical applications.