- Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. (commonly Ball Aerospace) is a manufacturer of spacecraft, components, and instruments for national defense, civil space and commercial space applications. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL), with primary offices and facilities in Boulder, Broomfield and Westminster inColorado , with smaller offices inNew Mexico ,Ohio , Georgia, and NorthernVirginia .Ball Aerospace began building pointing controls for military rockets in
1956 , and later won a contract to build one ofNASA ’s first spacecraft, theOrbiting Solar Observatory . Over the years, the company has been responsible for numerous technological and scientific projects and continues to provide aerospace technology to NASA and related industries.Ball Aerospace also has many other products and services for the aerospace industry, including lubricants, optical systems,
star tracker s and antennas. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ball Corp., Ball Aerospace was cited in 2005 as the 99th largest defense contractor in the world. [cite web |url=http://www.defensenews.com/content/features/2005chart1.html |title=Defense News Top 100 |accessdate=2006-07-29 |year=2005 |publisher=Defense News Research ] Both parent and subsidiary headquarters are co-located in Broomfield, Colorado.Participating projects
Current
* The
Orbital Express [ [http://www.ballaerospace.com/oexpress.html Oribital Express] ] autonomous satellite servicing mission
* TheKepler Space Observatory [ [http://www.ballaerospace.com/kepler.html Kepler Space Observatory] ] satellite to search for habitable planets
* TheJames Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study the formation of the earliest stars in the universe.
* TheWide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Program, which, over a seven-month mission in a polar orbit will map the entire sky in multiple mid-far infrared wavelengths. This crucial mission may find close and cool objects to our sun never before detected. It will also act as a predecessor to the JWST Program.
* The Opticks [ [http://www.ballaerospace.com/page.jsp?page=30&id=279 Opticks] ] remote sensing application.Historical
*
DigitalGlobe 's remote sensing spacecraft:QuickBird (withOrbital Sciences Corporation ),WorldView I , andWorldView II
* The instrumentation for theSpitzer Space Telescope . Ball Aerospace developed the Cryogenic Telescope Assembly (CTA) and two of the three science instruments: the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) and the Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS).
* Instrument packages for theHubble Telescope , including the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), all which will be installed on the observatory during theSpace Shuttle servicing mission scheduled for 2008. When the servicing mission is complete, all of Hubble's scientific instruments will be of Ball Aerospace manufacture.
* AEROScite book|author=Yenne, Bill|title="The Encyclopedia of US Spacecraft"|publisher=Exeter Books (A Bison Book), New York|year=1985|id=ISBN 0-671-07580-2p.12 AEROS]
*CALIPSO , a joint NASA andCNES environmental spacecraft
*CloudSat , aNASA Earth observation spacecraft
* Deep Impact spacecraft. Ball Aerospace designed and built the spacecraft and all of its instrument packages forNASA .
* Star trackers for NASA'sSpace Shuttle program
* TheMars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)HiRISE camera
* Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) conformal antennas
* High-Gain Antenna Gimbal (HGAG) and the Panoramic-camera Mast Assembly (PMA)for theMars Exploration Rover
*Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO)
* Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). Ball Aerospace developed and built the cryogenically cooled telescope, dewar and sunshade
* The Mast Mounted Sight for theOH-58D Kiowa helicopter
*SBUV/2 Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet RadiometerReferences
External links
* [http://www.ballaerospace.com/ Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. home page]
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