How does a satellite phone work?

Would a satellite phone work on the moon?

• I was flying to the moon today (virtually of course) and got to thinking: wouldn't it be cool if we could go to the moon and use a satellite phone to call somebody back on earth?

• Answer:

  Not an ordinary one. Ordinary earth bound satellite phones use a cluster of satellites which orbit particularily close to the earth, have there antennae aimed down, and just enough power to communicate with earth bound handsets and earth stations. Chances are, likely within the next decade, to travel to the moon, your organization would have your own communication system of some sort to communicate to Earth, likely including some moon orbiting satellite, which would communicate with an earth satellite made for Moon comms, or directly to earth stations. In the distant future, as the Moon gets colonized and Earth-Moon trips become common, you likely can get a commodity comm system as easily as you get a satellite phone today.