Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has opened an 8,400-square meter expansion to its advanced satellite manufacturing center in Boulder, Colo., more than doubling its current spacecraft production capability.
The $75 million Fisher Integration and Test Facilities expansion began in 2005 and opened Jan. 25.
The revamped building includes a 60 percent increase in cleanroom space with four cleanrooms, “state-of-the-art environmental testing systems, and build-out capacity for a larger thermal vacuum chamber to test spacecraft,” according to a press release from the company.
Ball officials plan to test aircraft such as NASA’s Joint Polar Satellite System, the WorldView-3 remote-sensing satellite for DigitalGlobe, the Sentinel Mission for the B612 Foundation and multiple U.S. Department of Defense and national security missions at the new building.
Ball bills the facility as the first in the United States to comply with stricter security standards for manufacturers working on classified projects.
