Ball Aerospace Delivers CloudSat Spacecraft for Launch Later This Year
May 16, 2005
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has successfully delivered the CloudSat weather and climate spacecraft to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, for a launch later this year. CloudSat is part of the multi-satellite, multi-sensor NASA experiment designed to reveal the inner secrets of clouds and improve weather forecasts and climate predictions.
Ball Aerospace built the CloudSat spacecraft under contract to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which included testing and integrating the payload, as part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program. The ESSP program fosters innovative, low-cost earth observation missions designed to study the Earth as a global environmental system.
Ball Aerospace will also support CloudSat launch operations and initial on-orbit commissioning. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched jointly with its Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) sister satellite. Ball Aerospace also built CALIPSO's lidar and wide field camera.
Ball Corporation
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SOURCE: Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
CONTACT: Dave Beachley of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.,
+1-303-533-5089,