Ball Aerospace Prepares to Ship WorldView I
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BOULDER, Colo., July 30 / -- Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has successfully completed assembly and performance testing of WorldView I, the remote sensing satellite built for DigitalGlobe®. Ball Aerospace, DigitalGlobe and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) have completed their comprehensive pre-shipment review and the satellite is being readied for delivery to California's Vandenberg Air Force Base for a mid-September launch.
Ball Aerospace built the satellite bus and the WorldView 60 camera for WorldView I, the next-generation commercial remote sensing satellite. The satellite will provide unprecedented high resolution imaging capability for DigitalGlobe's customers, including the NGA and other customers around the world. Once launched, WorldView I will be the world's only half-meter commercial imaging satellite and will provide still higher resolution capability than the QuickBird satellite, currently the world's highest resolution commercial Earth imaging satellite in operation.
"Ball Aerospace has worked hand-in-hand with DigitalGlobe since the mid 1990's to supply the QuickBird, WorldView I, and soon WorldView II satellites," said David L. Taylor, president and CEO of Ball Aerospace. "The constellation of commercial spacecraft created by this partnership significantly meets the increased demand for remote sensing imagery."
The Control Moment Gyroscopes mounted on the WorldView I spacecraft will afford the flexibility to capture more imagery than ever before. This high spatial resolution, panchromatic imagery is used for civil government mapping, land-use planning, disaster relief, exploration, defense and intelligence, and visualization and simulation environments.
For WorldView II, Ball Aerospace is building a Ball Commercial Platform 5000 spacecraft bus, and will integrate the remote sensing instrument. WorldView 2 will be ready for launch in late 2008.
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. Over the past 50 years, 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 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 2006 sales of $6.6 billion.
FCMN Contact: rbrown@ball.com
Source: Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
CONTACT:
Roz Brown of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
+1-303-533-6059
rbrown@ball.com
Web site: http://www.ballaerospace.com/
