On Imperial Highway, on the south side of LAX, is the world’s largest satellite factory, operated by Boeing Satellite Systems. The plant specializes in geosynchronous satellites (meaning they rotate with the earth), which are used to communicate primarily with fixed ground antennas. The plant has produced more than 300 major satellites to date, and occupies several structures over a few blocks along Imperial Highway. Hughes Electronics, based in Culver City, bought a Nash automobile plant here in 1955. The plant produced the world’s first geosynchronous satellite, Syncom, built for NASA in 1963, as well as the first commercial satellite, Early Bird, in 1965. By the late 1990s, the plant was the largest supplier of commercial satellites in the world, and one of the largest producers of military satellites as well, and had produced almost 40% of the satellites in service internationally at that time. Boeing acquired the plant in 2000, when it bought Hughes Space and Communications Company.