New SATCOM tech helps downed pilot rescues

In an exclusive interview with Defence Blog, the co-founder and chief executive of Israeli defense technology company Commcrete said a new generation of miniaturized satellite communication systems is reshaping how defense organizations approach combat search and rescue, as militaries move away from legacy models that depend on establishing connectivity only when conditions allow.

Itzik Daniel Michaeli said the company’s palm-sized, low size, weight, and power — or low-SWaP — SATCOM devices are currently used by defense and security organizations worldwide. While declining to identify specific customers, he described what he called a clear and accelerating shift in operational doctrine among the forces employing the technology.

The problem Commcrete set out to address, Michaeli explained, is one that has challenged combat search and rescue operations for decades. When aircrew go down in hostile territory, the race to locate and recover them unfolds alongside adversaries seeking to exploit the incident operationally and psychologically.

Traditional satellite and line-of-sight communication systems, he said, were built around assumptions that rarely hold in modern rescue scenarios: stable positioning, clear sky access, line-of-sight to the satellite, and time to establish a link.

“A downed pilot ejecting at high speed, a team moving under dense canopy, or personnel navigating urban terrain cannot stop to align antennas, expose themselves on high ground, or wait to establish connectivity,” Michaeli said.

He added that communication often fails at the moments when it is needed most — during movement, concealment, or extraction.

“This creates an operational blind spot: periods where forces are effectively disconnected, with limited visibility into the exact location or status of the isolated person,” Michaeli said. “In a mission defined by urgency and adversarial pressure, that loss of continuity can directly impact survival and recovery success.”

Michaeli said the company’s approach is built around a different concept: treating communication not as an event initiated by the user, but as a continuous operational layer active from the moment of ejection through evasion and extraction.

“The key shift is eliminating dependency on ideal conditions,” he said.

According to Michaeli, Commcrete’s low-SWaP systems are designed to maintain connectivity as a default state, including while moving on foot and in highly dynamic environments such as dense foliage, urban terrain, maritime operations, parachute descent, helicopter rotor wash, and fast-moving aircraft.

One of the system’s distinguishing features, he said, is remote activation. Command centers and rescue teams can initiate communication, retrieve data, or verify the status of isolated personnel without requiring any action from the operator.

“This is especially critical if the isolated person is injured or unable to communicate,” Michaeli said.

Combined with active on-demand tracking, he said, the capability enables continuous visibility from the moment of ejection through descent, landing, and ground movement, compressing the timelines associated with the so-called “Golden Hour” — the critical period in which successful recovery is most likely.

Asked about resilience against jamming and signal disruption, Michaeli pointed to the system’s waveform design, high link budget of up to 32 decibels, and adaptive link management intended to preserve continuity in obstructed and contested environments.

“This is enabled by a combination of our advanced waveform design, a very high link budget (up to 32 dB), and adaptive link management that prioritizes continuity in dynamic, obstructed, and contested environments,” he said.

He added that the system is designed with a low probability of detection and interception in mind, reducing the risk of geolocation by hostile forces.

“Commcrete’s proprietary waveform delivers a clear advantage in heavily contested environments, maintaining reliable performance even under severe RF interference and jamming,” Michaeli said. “This allows operators to sustain mission continuity under active threat conditions.”

The result, he said, is a communication layer that continues to function where conventional architectures begin to degrade or fail.

Michaeli also emphasized that simplicity is directly linked to survivability in CSAR scenarios.

“Operators may be injured, disoriented, or under threat. Systems must work immediately, without configuration, and without requiring communications expertise,” he said. “Plug-and-play is not a convenience, it is an operational requirement.”

He said the same technology and user experience remain consistent across every phase of the mission — in flight, after ejection, and during ground movement — while rescue teams across air, land, and sea operate on the same system alongside command centers.

“The system is designed to be intuitive, requiring minimal training, and to function reliably under stress,” Michaeli said. “It adapts to the operational environment, supporting the full mission lifecycle while allowing the operator to focus on the mission, and not the technology.”

Michaeli said the broader transformation is already visible in both training and operational use.

“We’re seeing a clear shift in both training and operational use toward continuous connectivity models,” he said.

In recent operational scenarios, he said, forces using the company’s technology maintained uninterrupted communication in highly challenging conditions, enabling continuous situational awareness and more informed decision-making.

“This transforms CSAR from a search-based mission into an information-driven recovery operation, where accurate, real-time data replaces uncertainty and significantly reduces the operational burden,” Michaeli said.

He added that the same model is increasingly being applied to special operations and disaster response missions where communications infrastructure may be unavailable.

“At a broader level, this reflects a doctrinal shift — from assuming communication will be conditional and fragile, to expecting it to be continuous, resilient, and always available, even in the most complex environments,” he said. “CSAR is simply where the consequences of that shift are most visible and most critical.”