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Ball

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AKA: Ball Space Systems. Location: Boulder, Colorado.

Founded in 1956, specializing originally in attitude control sensors for satellites.

• GFO - . Nation: USA. Agency: USN. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Earth. Type: Civilian Radarsat. Spacecraft Bus: BCP-600. Spacecraft: GFO. USAF Sat Cat: 25157 . COSPAR: 1998-007A. Apogee: 788 km (489 mi). Perigee: 786 km (488 mi). Inclination: 108.10 deg. Period: 100.60 min. Altimeter..

• QuikScat - . Nation: USA. Agency: NASA Greenbelt. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Earth. Type: Sea satellite. Spacecraft: BCP-2000. USAF Sat Cat: 25789 . COSPAR: 1999-034A. Apogee: 802 km (498 mi). Perigee: 802 km (498 mi). Inclination: 98.60 deg. Period: 100.90 min.

  NASA's QuikScat carried the SeaWinds scatterometer for remote sensing of ocean winds. The Titan 2's second stage shut down at 02:20 GMT and then coasted to apogee still attached to the QuikScat. The Titan second stage vernier thrusters ignited at apogee to raise perigee, leaving QuikScat in a 280 km x 813 km x 98.7 degree parking orbit. The QuikScat's own hydrazine propulsion system then fired to raise the perigee over a period of weeks.

• QuickBird 1 - . Mass: 950 kg (2,090 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: DigitalGlobe. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Surveillance. Type: Civilian surveillance satellite. Spacecraft: BCP-2000. Decay Date: 2000-11-21 . USAF Sat Cat: 26617 . COSPAR: 2000-074A. Apogee: 614 km (381 mi). Perigee: 80 km (49 mi). Inclination: 65.70 deg. Period: 91.49 min.

  The Kosmos-3M second stage entered an 81 x 614 km x 65.8 deg orbit but failed to restart at apogee, and reentered at the next perigee over Uruguay. The loss of the QuickBird 1 satellite was a heavy blow to EarthWatch Inc. QuickBird1 was a 1-m resolution commerical imaging satellite using a Ball Aerospace BCP-2000 bus. Their earlier satellite, EarlyBird, failed after a few days in orbit in December 1997. EarthWatch's rival, SpaceImaging, lost one satellite as well but its second Ikonos was operating in orbit.

• QuickBird 2 - . Mass: 980 kg (2,160 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: DigitalGlobe. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Surveillance. Type: Civilian surveillance satellite. Spacecraft: BCP-2000. Decay Date: 2015-01-27 . USAF Sat Cat: 26953 . COSPAR: 2001-047A. Apogee: 471 km (292 mi). Perigee: 471 km (292 mi). Inclination: 97.20 deg. Period: 94.00 min.

  The QuickBird commercial imaging satellite was owned by DigitalGlobe (formerly EarthWatch) and used a Ball BCP2000 bus with a launch mass of 1028 kg and a dry mass of about 995 kg. The Delta upper stage entered a 185 x 472 km x 98.1 deg orbit at 1902 GMT. At 1948 GMT it reached apogee and fired again to deploy QuickBird into a 461 x 465 km x 97.2 deg orbit. The Delta then made a series of unusual depletion burns, lowering its perigee to 167 km and changing inclination to 108.9 deg.

  Quickbird 2 was to be operational after a few months of calibration and "ground-truth" checkouts to market high resolution images. The 1.0 tonne satellite was reported to be capable of images with a resolution as small as 0.6 meter, though the standard products were to be coarser. Unlike the comparable quality images from IKONOS images, some of which are currently marketed exclusively to the US military, all Quickbird 2 images may be available in the open market.

• ICESat - . Payload: EOS-LAM. Mass: 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Earth. Type: Sea satellite. Spacecraft: BCP-2000. Decay Date: 2010-08-30 . USAF Sat Cat: 27642 . COSPAR: 2003-002A. Apogee: 610 km (379 mi). Perigee: 593 km (368 mi). Inclination: 94.01 deg. Period: 96.56 min. Oceanography, gravimetry, altimetry mission. Delayed from March 30, May 12, August 30, September 10, December 15 and 20, 2002; and Jan. 11 and 12, 2003..

• Cloudsat - . Mass: 848 kg (1,869 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: CSA, NASA, USAF. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Earth. Type: Weather satellite. Spacecraft: BCP-2000. USAF Sat Cat: 29107 . COSPAR: 2006-016A. Apogee: 704 km (437 mi). Perigee: 702 km (436 mi). Inclination: 98.20 deg. Period: 98.80 min. Cloudsat carried a 94 GHz cloud profiling radar. Both the Cloudsat and Calipso satellites were in the A-train polar constellation, in the same orbit as the large Aqua and Aura satellites..

• NextSat - . Mass: 250 kg (550 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: DARPA. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Technology. Type: Rendezvous technology satellite. Spacecraft: RS-300. USAF Sat Cat: 30774 . COSPAR: 2007-006C. Apogee: 498 km (309 mi). Perigee: 491 km (305 mi). Inclination: 46.00 deg. Period: 94.50 min. The passive satellite portion of DARPA's Orbital Express satellite servicing experiment. NextSat carried hydrazine for fluid transfer experiments, but no propulsion system. Attitude was controlled by momentum wheels supplemented by magnetic torquer rods..

• AIM - . Mass: 150 kg (330 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: Hampton, NASA. Manufacturer: Ball, OSC. Spacecraft: RS-300. USAF Sat Cat: 31304 . COSPAR: 2007-015A. Apogee: 602 km (374 mi). Perigee: 584 km (362 mi). Inclination: 97.80 deg. Period: 96.50 min.

  NASA Small Explorer mission, for Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere. AIM carried three scientific instruments to study polar mesospheric clouds: a solar occultation camera, an ultraviolet imager, and a cosmic dust experiment. Air dropped in Point Arguello WADZ.

• USA 216 - . Payload: SBSS. Mass: 1,031 kg (2,272 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: USAF. Manufacturer: Ball. Class: Surveillance. Type: Orbital object tracking satellite. Spacecraft: BCP-2000. USAF Sat Cat: 37168 . COSPAR: 2010-048A. Apogee: 633 km (393 mi). Perigee: 632 km (392 mi). Inclination: 98.00 deg. Period: 97.40 min. First Space-Based Surveillance Satellite; designed to track satellites and orbital junk from a space-based vantage point..