Mary-Louise Hoffman
Ball Aerospace & Technologies has completed the integration of an Aerojet Rocketdyne-built propulsion subsystem into a small satellite Ball is building for NASA‘s Green Propellant Infusion Mission.
NASA aims to launch the Ball Commercial Platform-100 spacecraft equipped with Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Green Propellant Propulsion System into orbit next year, Ball Aerospace said Monday.
Aerojet Rocketdyne delivered the subsystem to Ball in August.
“GPIM is the key mission to demonstrate a green monopropellant alternative to hydrazine,” said Jim Oschmann, vice president and general manager of Ball Aerospace’s civil space business.
“Everyone in the industry, from NASA to our industry partners to green propellant suppliers, is eager to see 10 years of American-led research and development realized with this spaceflight mission,” Oschmann added.
BCP-100 would also carry three U.S. Defense Department-provided experimental payloads, two of which flew aboard the STPSat-3 satellite that DoD launched in 2013.
Ball Aerospace and Aerojet Rocketdyne collaborates with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and AF Space and Missile Systems Center as well as NASA’s Glenn Research, Kennedy Space and Goddard Space Flight Centers on the GPIM program.
