Ball Aerospace has shipped the Ozone Mapping Profile Suite (OMPS) instrument for integration onto NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) weather satellite.
“Ball has been a part of ozone measurements from space for more than 40 years, and we are excited now to ship the OMPS instrument for integration onto NOAA’s next polar-orbiting operational weather satellite,” said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace. “This is the third OMPS instrument Ball has delivered, with two currently in orbit providing critical ozone data. These measurements are used by forecasters at the National Weather Service to produce ultraviolet (UV) radiation forecasts, by researchers to track the health of the ozone layer and by policy makers to help improve life on Earth.”
The OMPS instrument observes stratospheric ozone and measures its concentration as it varies with altitude. It is a three-part hyperspectral instrument, which includes a Nadir Mapper that will map global ozone with about 50-km ground resolution, a Nadir Profiler that will measure the vertical distribution of ozone in the stratosphere and the NASA-provided Limb Profiler that measures ozone in the lower stratosphere and troposphere with high vertical resolution.
The JPSS series of polar-orbiting weather satellites are funded by NOAA to provide global environmental data in low-Earth polar orbit. NASA is the acquisition agent for the flight systems, launch services and components of the ground segment.
Since the 1970’s, Ball has designed and manufactured nearly 20 instruments to map and monitor stratospheric ozone, including a series of Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) instruments for NASA and nine Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Radiometer (SBUV/2) instruments that have flown on an earlier generation NOAA polar-orbiting satellites. Ball also has played key roles on numerous operational environmental satellite programs, such as the Ball-built Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite, which launched in 2011, and the JPSS-1 satellite, now NOAA-20, which launched in 2017. Both Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 are flying OMPS instruments built by Ball. In addition, Ball is currently building the Weather System Follow-on – Microwave (WSF-M) satellite for the U.S. Space Force, a system that will make critical measurements of the ocean surface and atmosphere to meet specific DOD space based environmental monitoring requirements.
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Ball Corporation (NYSE: BLL) supplies innovative, sustainable aluminum packaging solutions for beverage, personal care and household products customers, as well as aerospace and other technologies and services primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ more than 18,300 people worldwide and reported 2019 net sales of $11.5 billion. For more information, visit www.ball.com, or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.
