New spot beams boost satellites' bandwidth: SSL's satellites constructed for Telesat also feature 3D-printed components - [News]

Over the past few months, the spacecraft manufacturing company SSL put the finishing touches on three massive communications satellites. It built two of them for Canadian operator Telesat. Then it initiated its plan to have them launched, one after the other, into distinct geosynchronous orbits 36,000 kilometers above Earth—perches that will keep each satellite hovering over a particular spot, even as the planet turns.