Exploring the Universe
Millions of Miles into Deep Space
What are comets made of? The Deep Impact dual spacecraft found out when it impacted and imaged Comet Tempel 1 located 83 million miles from Earth. We designed both the Impactor and the Flyby spacecraft plus two instruments. The High Resolution Instrument (HRI) was the first of its kind and was powerful enough to resolve a car from across the state of Colorado. It used technologies we developed for the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The Flyby spacecraft’s other instrument is the Medium Resolution Instrument (MRI), which provided science context, ejecta imaging and targeting.
Searching for Earth’s Twin
Kepler/K2
In its five years on-orbit, Kepler revolutionized humankind’s understanding of extrasolar planets by finding thousands of planetary candidates, hundreds of multi-planet systems and much more. We are serving as the mission prime contractor for the K2/Kepler mission, which includes responsibility for the spacecraft and photometer, system integration, testing and on-orbit operations.
Image Credit: Artist’s concept Kepler 186f. Credit: NASA
Image Credit: Artist’s concept Kepler 186f. Credit: NASA
The Solar System and Beyond
HiRISE
The largest telescopic instrument ever sent beyond Earth’s orbit is our Hi-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Since its 2005 launch, HiRISE has been returning images of the surface of the red planet at a higher resolution and contrast than ever before.
Image Credit: Victoria Crater Mars. Credit: NASA, JPL, Univ. of Arizona, Ohio State Univ.
Image Credit: Victoria Crater Mars. Credit: NASA, JPL, Univ. of Arizona, Ohio State Univ.
Revealing Pluto’s Mysteries
The Ralph Imager
The amazing photos returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft were taken by our instrument Ralph. It traveled more than 3 billion miles over nearly 10 years to reach the distant planet and operated perfectly once it got there. The images revealing Pluto’s exotic geology and atmosphere that Ralph sends back are astounding scientists and rewriting text books.
Image Credit: Pluto’s blue haze atmosphere. Credit: NASA
Image Credit: Pluto’s blue haze atmosphere. Credit: NASA
Space Weather
Providing Solar Impacts to Human Activity
The Sun regularly releases massive amounts of radiation and charged particles through solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and other high-energy emissions. Collectively referred to as space weather, these events can endanger astronauts in space, interfere with satellites and damage communications and power grid infrastructure, causing significant economic impact.
Ushering in a new generation of space weather observing satellites, the Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) mission is scheduled to launch in 2024 and facilitate early warnings for destructive space weather events. SWFO-L1 will collect solar wind data and coronal imagery to meet NOAA’s operational requirements to monitor and forecast solar storm activity.
Building on the success of our spacecraft buses designed for operational weather missions like NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP, Ball was selected to deliver and operate a high-performing small satellite for the SWFO-L1 mission in partnership with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The small satellite will host several instruments to measure and assess the space weather environment.
Image Credit: Ball/SOHO
Ushering in a new generation of space weather observing satellites, the Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) mission is scheduled to launch in 2024 and facilitate early warnings for destructive space weather events. SWFO-L1 will collect solar wind data and coronal imagery to meet NOAA’s operational requirements to monitor and forecast solar storm activity.
Building on the success of our spacecraft buses designed for operational weather missions like NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP, Ball was selected to deliver and operate a high-performing small satellite for the SWFO-L1 mission in partnership with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The small satellite will host several instruments to measure and assess the space weather environment.
Image Credit: Ball/SOHO
NEOWISE/WISE
Mapping the celestial sky and revealing previously undiscovered objects in the solar system.
More
New Horizons/Ralph
Ball built the Ralph instrument, a core member of the seven instruments aboard New Horizons.
More
STORRM
A next generation docking camera and navigation system to make docking and undocking to the International Space Station (ISS) and other spacecraft easier and safer.
More
SWFO-L1
The Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) mission will facilitate early warnings for destructive space weather events.
More