Ball Aerospace's CALIPSO Lidar Passes One Billionth Milestone
February 13 2008 - 8:03AM
PR Newswire (US)
BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Ball
Aerospace & Technologies Corp. free-flying atmospheric lidar
aboard NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite
Observations (CALIPSO) mission, fired its one billionth laser pulse
over the Ivory Coast on Sunday, Feb. 3., making it the longest
lasting, most powerful on-orbit space laser. (Photo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080213/LAW062) In
congratulating NASA's Langley Research Center and the Centre
National d'Etudes spatiales for CALIPSO's on-orbit milestone, Vice
President and General Manager for Ball's Civil and Operational
Space business unit, Cary Ludtke, said, "Exceeding one billion
laser pulses is a significant milestone and validates the early
risk reduction investments made by NASA and Ball Aerospace." The
Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP)
instrument aboard CALIPSO was developed by Ball Aerospace, its
Virginia-based subcontractor, Fibertek, and NASA Langley. CALIOP is
a two-wavelength polarization-sensitive lidar that provides
high-resolution vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds. The
CALIPSO mission is providing new insight into the role that clouds
and atmospheric aerosol (airborne particles) play in regulating
Earth's weather, climate, and air quality. CALIPSO's technical and
scientific success leveraged many innovative technologies including
never-before-flown lasers, optical coatings and filters, computers,
digitizers, pointing mechanisms, low-noise power supplies and
microbolometer arrays. The flight risks associated with the laser
were then managed jointly by Ball, Fibertek, and NASA to
methodically bring spaceflight design, screening, environmental
qualification, and contamination management disciplines to the
early development program. NASA's Langley Research Center brought
forth a solid history of lidar system design, low- noise receiver
design practices, and calibration methods from the shuttle- based
Lidar In-space Technology Experiment (LITE), and numerous
aircraft-based and ground-based lidar projects. In 2007, the Ball
Aerospace CALIPSO team received a NASA Group Achievement Award for
its significant contributions to the mission. CALIPSO was launched
on April 28, 2006, with the cloud profiling radar mission CloudSat.
CALIPSO and CloudSat fly in formation with three other satellites
in the A-train constellation to enable an even greater
understanding of our climate system from the broad array of sensors
on these other spacecraft. 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. For more than 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
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. Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains "forward-looking" statements concerning
future events and financial performance. Words such as "expects,"
"anticipates," "estimates" and similar expressions are intended to
identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to
risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ
materially from those expressed or implied. The company undertakes
no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward- looking
statements, whether as a result of new information, future events
or otherwise. Key risks and uncertainties are summarized in filings
with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Exhibit 99.2
in our Form 10-K, which are available at our Web site and at
http://www.sec.gov/. Factors that might affect our packaging
segments include fluctuation in product demand and preferences;
availability and cost of raw materials, including recent
significant increases in resin, steel, aluminum and energy costs,
and the ability to pass such increases on to customers; competitive
packaging availability, pricing and substitution; changes in
climate and weather; crop yields; competitive activity; failure to
achieve anticipated productivity improvements or production cost
reductions, including our beverage can end project; mandatory
deposit or other restrictive packaging laws; changes in major
customer or supplier contracts or loss of a major customer or
supplier; and changes in foreign exchange rates, tax rates and
activities of foreign subsidiaries. Factors that might affect our
aerospace segment include: funding, authorization, availability and
returns of government and commercial contracts; and delays,
extensions and technical uncertainties affecting segment contracts.
Factors that might affect the company as a whole include those
listed plus: accounting changes; changes in senior management;
successful or unsuccessful acquisitions, joint ventures or
divestitures; integration of recently acquired businesses;
regulatory action or laws including tax, environmental and
workplace safety; governmental investigations; technological
developments and innovations; goodwill impairment; antitrust,
patent and other litigation; strikes; labor cost changes; rates of
return projected and earned on assets of the company's defined
benefit retirement plans; pension changes; reduced cash flow;
interest rates affecting our debt; and changes to unaudited results
due to statutory audits or other effects.
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080213/LAW062
http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: Ball Corporation CONTACT:
Roz Brown of Ball Corporation, +1-303-533-6059, Web site:
http://www.ballaerospace.com/
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