NSLComm

NSLComm (Nano Satellite Launch Communications), headquartered in Ra'anana, Israel and founded in 2012, is an Israeli satellite technology company developing a patented deployable satellite antenna technology that enables small satellites and cubesats to achieve high-throughput communication bandwidths that traditionally required much larger spacecraft — bridging the gap between the cost and mass of small satellites and the bandwidth requirements of commercial communication applications.

NSLComm's core innovation is a compact, deployable Ka-band antenna system stored in an extremely small stowed volume during launch and deployed on-orbit to a much larger aperture for satellite communications. Traditional satellite antennas (rigid reflectors) must fit within the launch vehicle fairing in their operational configuration, limiting reflector diameter and therefore antenna gain. NSLComm's antenna deploys from a volume smaller than a standard cubesat unit, enabling a single 6U cubesat to carry an antenna system capable of providing Ka-band throughput competitive with much larger traditional satellites.

The larger effective aperture provided by the deployed NSLComm antenna dramatically increases the communication link budget between the satellite and ground terminals, enabling higher data rates or connection to smaller, cheaper ground terminals (smaller ground antenna = lower cost user equipment). For IoT applications, this enables connecting low-cost, compact IoT devices to small satellites at data rates sufficient for real-time telemetry rather than just occasional short data messages. For broadband, it enables cubesat-class satellites to contribute meaningful capacity to LEO broadband constellations at a fraction of the spacecraft mass and cost.

NSLComm has demonstrated its technology in space with the NSLSat-1 cubesat (launched 2020 via ISRO PSLV as part of a rideshare) that validated the deployable antenna in orbit. The company targets LEO constellation operators building IoT and broadband networks who want to maximize per-satellite bandwidth capacity while minimizing satellite mass and cost. Israel's strong antenna engineering and defense electronics ecosystem provides NSLComm with a rich talent pool from companies including Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems.