COMSAT is the premier example of a mid-twentieth-century corporate suburban campus in Maryland, with additional international significance through its function as a groundbreaking public-private entity in the development of artificial satellite communications for military and civilian applications. COMSAT, or Communications Satellite Corporation, was created by the Communications Satellite Act of 1962, and President John F. Kennedy personally picked its leaders as part of his space program initiative.
After a few years as a publicly traded corporation, COMSAT built a new laboratory facility along the I-270 corridor. Constructed as the Washington National Pike between 1953 and 1960 and connected to the Capital Beltway in 1964, this highway was emerging as a high-tech corridor through federal decentralization projects such as the relocation of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1957 and the National Bureau of Standards in 1966.
Pelli designed the laboratory to be seen from the highway, presenting a gleaming image of hightech modernism set within a naturalistic 150-acre campus created by Collins with stands of native trees and manicured lawns. Pelli sheathed the building in an aluminum and glass skin that recalled an airplane, with glass catwalks connecting the various wings and presenting a unified facade to the highway. The north end of the main circulation spine with wings for offices and laboratories terminates in a dramatic glass-walled two-story exhibition pavilion. Additional original wings to the east included machine shops, maintenance areas, and a massive Environmental Test Laboratory warehouse where testing could simulate space conditions. In 1998 COMSAT merged with Lockheed Martin, and operations at the Clarksburg building were discontinued. While a major preservation initiative raised awareness, the building does not have any protective historic designations and still awaits a new long-term tenant to assure its survival.