Ball Aerospace has built and delivered a flight cryocooler for the thermal sensor instrument of an Earth observation satellite that NASA aims to launch in December 2020. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland received the Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor-2 cryocooler ahead of a scheduled instrument integration and test, Ball Aerospace said Wednesday. The cryocooler is designed to lower the temperature […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has received a contract from the Defense Department to design a low-Earth orbit satellite system to support weather forecasting across maritime regions. The company said Wednesday it will serve as prime contractor on the Weather System Follow-on – Microwave program and conduct risk reduction efforts for the LEO satellite. WSF-M will be designed […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has received a $47.9 million contract modification to develop tools, methods and techniques for the U.S. Air Force to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in weapon systems. The Defense Department said Wednesday the company will provide research and development services intended to help the military branch secure weapons against cyber attacks. Work will occur at Wright-Patterson Air […] More

Ball Aerospace has helped encapsulate a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellite inside the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance-built Delta II launch vehicle and prepared the instrument for its scheduled launch. The company said Thursday the NOAA-NASA team’s Joint Polar Satellite System-1 weather satellite will be deployed from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in […] More

Ball Aerospace and other Joint Polar Satellite System-1 team members are preparing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration polar orbiting weather satellite for a scheduled Nov. 10 launch. The JPSS-1 team pressurized the propulsion system, fueled the satellite, cleaned the spacecraft and finished a final thermal blanket closeout in preparation for launch, Ball Aerospace said Thursday. JPSS-1 was […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has conducted spectometer testing and verification activities on an instrument built to measure air quality across North America. NASA selected the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution technology as the first Earth Venture instrument to measure levels of nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide and aerosols in the atmosphere that affect human health […] More

Ball Aerospace has transported the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s polar orbiting weather satellite to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California ahead of the platform’s scheduled launch on Nov. 10. The company said Tuesday it delivered the Joint Polar Satellite System-1 following a pre-ship review at Ball’s Boulder, Colorado-based manufacturing facility. JPSS-1 is part of the JPSS series of […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has completed a six-month study on the wide field instrument for a NASA observatory that seeks to support the agency’s astrophysics research mission. The company said Monday it examined WFI technology and scientific requirements for NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope currently under development as a follow-on project to the James Webb Space Telescope. WFIRST is designed to capture images […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has won a potential $13.3 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to design, develop and deliver a testbed for Hallmark software and hardware platforms. The Defense Department said Friday that Ball Aerospace’s systems engineering solutions unit will build a testbed architecture that the military branch can apply to space command-and-control tasks, implement […] More

NASA has selected Ball Aerospace & Technologies to design and develop a cryostat for a science mission that aims to measure emissions from the interstellar medium and study the life cycle of interstellar gas in the Milky Way. Ball Aerospace said Thursday it will build the cryostat to generate a temperature-controlled for detectors of the University of Arizona-led Galactic/Extragalactic Ultralong Duration Balloon […] More

Ball Aerospace and Spire Global will collaborate to support a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency project that seeks to increase maritime domain awareness in the Arctic region through the use of technology. Both companies aim to develop a data collection and analysis platform that will work to help the agency monitor the activity of vessels that travel in Arctic waters, Ball […] More

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has received a potential five-year, $9.5 million contract from NASA to continue to provide sustaining engineering support services for the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership Sustainability satellite. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity contract has a minimum task ordering value of $50,000 and covers engineering services to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s office of […] More