Mary-Louise Hoffman
Ball Aerospace & Technologies has tested the power system of an environmental monitoring satellite that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA plan to launch in 2017.
Cary Ludtke, vice president and general manager of Ball Aerospace’s operational space business said Tuesday the company powered on the Joint Polar Satellite System to gain insight into how JPSS-1 will operate in orbit.
The company has also integrated four out of five instruments into the satellite and is scheduled to enter the satellite’s environmental testing phase in early 2016.
JPSS-1 would collect oceanographic, land surface and atmospheric data currently provided by the Ball Aerospace-built Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite for the agency’s weather forecasting activities.
Ball Aerospace designed and built the satellite through a contract awarded by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
