Patent ID: 6973287

Claim:
A multi-beam satellite comprising: an input section to receive a plurality of first spot beams via a plurality of uplink antennas, each of the plurality of uplink antennas being repositionable to receive a test signal transmitted from a single earth station; an output section to transmit a plurality of second spot beams via a plurality of downlink antennas, each of the plurality of downlink antennas being repositionable to retransmit the test signal to the single earth station; and a payload architecture coupled between said input section and said output section, said payload architecture flexibly and selectively power dividing, switching and filtering signals from said plurality of first spot beams received by said input section and routing the signals to said output section to be transmitted as said plurality of second spot beams, said payload architecture being operative to select any of the plurality of first spot beams to contain a gateway.