Beam splitting hand off systems architecture

An antenna for use in satellite communication, the antenna comprising:

• an electronically steered flat-panel antenna aperture with a plurality of electronically controlled radio frequency (RF) radiating antenna elements;
• and
• one or more processors coupled to the antenna aperture to control the antenna aperture to generate a first beam with the antenna aperture to track a first satellite, to generate a second beam with the antenna aperture to track a second satellite simultaneously while generating the first beam to track the first satellite, and to hand off traffic from the first satellite to the second satellite.