NASA Extends Mission for Ball Aerospace-built ICESat
February 20 2008 - 8:03AM
PR Newswire (US)
BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Ice, Cloud
and Land Satellite (ICESat) built by Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp. will continue operations until at least 2010
following a NASA mission extension contract. (Photo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080220/LAW053) ICESat,
designed for a three-year lifetime with a five-year goal, was
launched Jan. 12, 2003. The Ball Commercial Platform (BCP) 2000
employed for ICESat was built under contract to NASA's Rapid Space
Development Office (RSDO). "The ICESat BCP has demonstrated that it
can meet the demanding rigors of environmental and remote-sensing
requirements and joins other Ball spacecraft in consistently
exceeding lifetime minimum requirements," said Cary Ludtke, vice
president and general manager for Ball's civil and commercial
business unit. ICESat has made significant contributions to the
measurement of ice sheet elevation, cloud and aerosol heights, as
well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. The mission
provides multi-year elevation data needed to determine ice sheet
mass balance and cloud property information, and provides
topography and vegetation data from around the globe as well as
polar-specific coverage over the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets. ICESat began its fourteenth science campaign return on
Saturday, Feb. 16, following calibration tests that further improve
pointing. The mission currently collects laser returns for
approximately 30 days at three- to six-month intervals. During each
orbit, the spacecraft's Geoscience Laser Altimeter, built by
Goddard Space Flight Center, points at the same ground track as it
passes over the polar regions and Greenland. The observing campaign
also requires the spacecraft to point at approximately 10 targets
of opportunity and return several ocean scans daily. In addition to
ICESat, the Ball Aerospace's QuikSCAT, and the NPOESS Preparatory
Project (NPP) spacecraft, were also RSDO procurements. 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/20080220/LAW053
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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