World’s largest 5G Narrowband-IoT constellation expands with two more satellites

Missions include a constellation satellite for monitoring methane gas emissions and two satellites for the world’s largest 5G Narrowband-IoT constellation

Kongsberg NanoAvionics (“NanoAvionics”), a leading smallsat bus manufacturer and mission integrator, has announced that four of its manufactured satellites are going into orbit aboard the upcoming SpaceX Transporter-10 mission.

NanoAvionics’s three customers on this rideshare mission are Luxembourg’s OQ Technology, the world’s first global satellite 5G IoT (Internet of Things) operator, Spanish Earth observation (EO) company Satlantis, and South Korea’s Contec, a ground station operator and service provider.

OQ Technology’s Tiger-7 and Tiger-8 nanosatellites will expand the world’s first and largest 5G Narrowband-IoT constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) to ten satellites. The two 6U nanosatellites constitute the fifth and sixth satellite that NanoAvionics has manufactured for OQ Technology. All of OQ Technology’s constellation satellites can connect directly to off-the-shelf IoT devices and machines and provide tracking and monitoring information.

The 16U HORACIO satellite will be Satlantis’ third satellite embarking its iSIM-90 imager into space. Its high-resolution data will give insights for multiple EO applications, such as infrastructure monitoring, methane gas emissions quantification, food security, and coastal and border awareness.

The “CONTECSAT-1” satellite is aimed at companies and organisations requiring data for maritime environments, city management, and agriculture. The 16U nanosatellite has an integrated multispectral imager, supplied by a NanoAvionics’s partner, with 1,5 m resolution. It will enable Contec to produce customised satellite imagery for their customers.

Žilvinas Kvedaravičius, CEO of Kongsberg NanoAvionics, said: “Our continued record of successfully building and launching nano- and microsatellites for individual missions as well as constellations is testimony to our position as the one of the prime smallsat manufacturers and mission operators in the US and Europe. The ongoing satellite production for existing customers is also an endorsement and validation of the high-quality and cost-effectiveness of our products and services. As a result, NanoAvionics has successfully launched more nanosatellites in the past five years than any other external manufacturer in the world, and we see a surging demand for our microsatellite buses, too.”

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