Ball Aerospace Begins Final Integration and Test for NPOESS Preparatory Project OMPS Instrument

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.’s Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) Protoflight Model (PFM) that will fly aboard the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) has entered final integration and acceptance testing.

Ball Aerospace expects to complete integration and testing in August, and deliver the OMPS PFM for spacecraft integration no later than September 30. OMPS is one of five sensors built for the NPP risk reduction mission, scheduled to launch in 2010. The NPP mission, a joint effort between NASA and the NPOESS Integrated Program Office, is designed to extend key measurements in support of long-term climate trend monitoring and global biological productivity and prove technologies for the NPOESS mission.

Northrop Grumman Corp. is the prime contractor for NPOESS, leading the effort to design, develop and launch the next generation low-Earth orbiting operational environmental monitoring system.

Initial assembly has also begun on the OMPS Flight Model 2 for the first NPOESS spacecraft. Nadir sensor fabrication is well underway with both focal planes complete and fabrication of the main electronics box has begun. The OMPS FM2 delivery is scheduled for December 2010, in preparation for the NPOESS launch scheduled for 2013.

OMPS will monitor ozone from space, collect total column and vertical profile ozone data, and continue the current daily global data provided by the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet radiometer (SBUV)/2 and Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), but with higher fidelity.

Ball Aerospace is also building the NPP spacecraft, a modified Ball Commercial Platform (BCP) 2000 under a contract to the Goddard Space Flight Center Rapid Spacecraft Development Office.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. supports critical missions of important national agencies such as the Department of Defense, NASA, NOAA and other U.S. government and commercial entities. The company develops and manufactures spacecraft, advanced instruments and sensors, components, data exploitation systems and RF solutions for strategic, tactical and scientific applications. Since 1956, Ball Aerospace has been responsible for numerous technological and scientific ‘firsts’ and acts as a technology innovator for the aerospace market.

Ball Corporation (NYSE:BLL) is a supplier of high-quality metal and plastic packaging products for beverage, food and household products customers, and of aerospace and other technologies and services, primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ more than 15,500 people worldwide and reported 2007 sales of $7.4 billion.

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