On World Engineering Day, we highlight Viasat’s innovative spirit and the teams of engineers that drive it.
ViaSat-3 marks a major engineering accomplishment for our company. In its 36-year history, Viasat has expanded its product line and acquired other companies to bring more processes under its own roof (and rely less on other companies). Building its own satellite payloads marks a significant milestone in that evolution.
ViaSat-3 Americas — expected to launch in 2022 as the first of three in the ViaSat-3 global constellation — is also the first of our satellite payloads constructed by Viasat employees at a company facility. Previous payloads were designed by Viasat but built by other companies.
Building the kind of world-class satellites and technology Viasat is famous for takes excellence in many different aspects of engineering.
About 3,000 engineers and 500 engineering technologists plan and build Viasat’s space and ground systems, and related products. And Viasat’s dedication to innovation and unique structure means there are endless challenges for them all.
“What’s cool about Viasat is that, because we are vertically integrated, no matter what jazzes you in terms of engineering, we do it here,” said Kathleen Wetherby, Viasat’s vice president of engineering for Space and Commercial Networks. “What’s also cool is that to stay at the forefront of technology we need to be ever changing, so regardless of what you are doing today, tomorrow you are likely to be doing something else entirely. That’s just such an exciting world to work in.
“The breadth of technical challenges that Viasat excels at solving is what keeps me coming to work every day.”