BALL AEROSPACE TO LAUNCH SATELLITE TO ASSIST NOAA
Ball Aerospace built new satellite to assist NOAA
BOULDER» The first spacecraft in the nation’s next generation of polar-orbiting satellites was set for launch in the predawn hours Tuesday, and the mission has strong Boulder ties.
The Joint Polar Satellite System-1, or JPPS-1, was designed and built by Boulder’s Ball Aerospace, and once it enters polar orbit, it will be known as NOAA-20, feeding National Weather Service models for Boulder’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The first in a series of four planned satellites in the nation’s newest generation of polar-orbiting operational environmental satellite system, JPSS-1 had originally been slated for launch Friday, but was rescheduled to take off Tuesday to address a battery issue on the lift rocket’s flight termination system.
Its launch — aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II from Space Launch Complex-2W at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. — was set for 2:47 a.m. MST on Tuesday. The mission is a joint effort between NOAA and NASA.
Ball also built one of the five instruments on the spacecraft, the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite.
Scott Asbury, program director at Ball
Aerospace and formerly the JPSS-1 program manager, is among the roughly 10 Ball personnel who will be at the launch site, while about another 10 from Ball plan to be at the NASA satellite operations facility in Suitland, Md.
“It’s always exciting to launch a satellite,” Asbury said Friday. “This program started seven years ago. It’s a complicated system that took a long time to design, build and test.
“A lot of people worked on it. In excess of 300 people touched this hardware.”
As described on the NOAA website, the JPSS initiative provides global observations that become the backbone of short- and long-term forecasts, helping weather watchers predict severe weather events, such as the series of damaging hurricanes that left Houston, Puerto Rico and other regions reeling in recent months.
Improved speed and accuracy in forecasting is seen as critical to better preparing emergency managers to make the decisions that boost the chances of protecting lives and property, such as ordering evacuations as many as five to seven days in advance.