Abstract: A scalable multi-satellite spot-beam network architecture that employs a plurality (N) of relatively small (low power) active spot beam satellites and a number (R) of spare satellites, all of which are substantially similar in design, has been described. The plurality of satellites is substantially collocated at a given orbital location to provide coverage of a desired geographic area. Each active satellite has 1/N of the total capacity of a slot, and there is significant amount of interchangeability among the active and spare satellites, enabling the spare and active satellites to provide protection against partial or full failures of any satellite or even a few (up to R) satellites. The system is scalable since a fraction of the N active satellites is required to provide capacity to the full geographic area, and additional satellites can be launched and additional gateways can be deployed to augment the network capacity.