Ball Aerospace Completes Assembly and Integration on NPP
January 05 2005 - 1:00PM
PR Newswire (US)
Ball Aerospace Completes Assembly and Integration on NPP BOULDER,
Colo., Jan. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Ball Aerospace & Technologies
Corp., has completed assembly and integration of the spacecraft for
the National Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite System (NPOESS)
Preparatory Project (NPP). Spacecraft performance testing is
completed, and environmental testing, including vibration and
thermal vacuum, have begun. NPP, the mission precursor for NPOESS,
has a twofold purpose: it will provide data continuity between the
Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra and Aqua missions and NPOESS,
and provide technical risk reduction for NPOESS. Under contract to
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to provide the spacecraft, Ball
Aerospace will deliver a modified Ball Aerospace Commercial
Platform (BCP 2000), and perform integration of the
government-furnished instruments and satellite-level testing. Ball
Aerospace is also providing one of four instruments selected for
the flight, the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS). "We are on
target to meet NPP's aggressive schedule and cost profile with bus
completion by March 2005, followed by instrument integration during
the summer of 2005," said Don Hood, NPP program manager. "Our past
experience in building the BCP 2000 has allowed us to successfully
meet schedule and perform to expectations." The BCP 2000 is part of
a line of spacecraft built by Ball Aerospace that can accommodate
Earth-sensing instrumentation requiring precision pointing control
while maintaining the flexibility needed for rapid target
selection. Several BCP 2000s are currently operating on-orbit,
including NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT), ICESat, the Ice,
Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite and DigitalGlobe's Quickbird
satellite. In addition, the Ball Aerospace-built bus will be
employed on NASA's CloudSat satellite, scheduled to launch later
this year. OMPS is the next-generation ozone monitoring system
designed to collect total column and vertical profile ozone data
and continue the daily global data produced by the current ozone
monitoring systems, the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet radiometer
(SBUV)/2, built by Ball Aerospace for NOAA POES spacecraft and
Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), built by Ball Aerospace
for Nimbus 7. The NPP is a joint effort of the NPOESS Integrated
Program Office, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, and NASA. Scheduled to launch in 2006, NPP will be
in orbit prior to the expected end-of-life of EOS Aqua and provide
overlap with the NPOESS spacecraft. Ball Corporation is a supplier
of high-quality metal and plastic packaging products and innovative
packaging solutions to the beverage and food industries. The
company also owns Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., which
develops sensors, spacecraft, systems and components for the
government and commercial markets. Ball employs 13,100 people
worldwide and reported 2003 sales of $4.9 billion. The information
in this news release contains "forward-looking" statements and
other statements concerning future events and financial
performance. Words such as "expects," "anticipates," "estimates,"
and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended
to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking 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 the company's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, especially in Exhibit 99.2 in the most recent
Form 10-K. These filings are available at the company's website and
at http://www.sec.gov/. Factors that might affect the packaging
segments of the company include fluctuation in consumer and
customer demand; competitive packaging material availability,
pricing and substitution; changes in climate and weather; fruit,
vegetable and fishing yields; industry productive capacity and
competitive activity; lack of productivity improvement or
production cost reductions; the German mandatory deposit or other
restrictive packaging laws; availability and cost of raw materials,
such as resin, steel and aluminum, and the ability to pass on to
customers changes in these costs; changes in major customer
contracts or the loss of a major customer; international business
risks, such as foreign exchange rates and tax rates; and the effect
of LIFO accounting on earnings. Factors that might affect the
aerospace segment include: funding, authorization and availability
of government contracts and the nature and continuation of those
contracts; and technical uncertainty associated with segment
contracts. Factors that could affect the company as a whole include
those listed plus: successful and unsuccessful acquisitions, joint
ventures or divestitures and associated integration activities;
regulatory action or laws including environmental and workplace
safety; goodwill impairment; antitrust and other litigation;
strikes; boycotts; increases in various employee benefits and labor
costs; rates of return projected and earned on assets of the
company's defined benefit retirement plans; reduced cash flow; and
interest rates affecting our debt. DATASOURCE: Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp. CONTACT: Roz Brown, Public Affairs,
+1-303-939-6146, or cell, +1-720-581-3135; or Sarah Hoyt,
+1-303-533-4945, both of Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp.,
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