Tracking Weather & Climate

Monitoring Air Pollution

When climatologists need more accurate data and weather forecasters want to predict days in advance, we’re their go-to partner. Flying on our spacecraft, instruments like TEMPO, GMI and CALIPSO gather extremely accurate data on pollution, precipitation and the impacts of clouds and aerosols on Earth’s climate.

Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer

Download to learn more about how GEMS can measure tropospheric pollution from space.

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MethaneSAT

Learn about how MethaneSAT will locate and measure methane emissions across the globe.

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Detailed Data, Actionable Environmental Intelligence

Protecting Communities, Benefiting Our Economy and Security

Severe weather events, solar storms and our changing climate pose significant threats to lives, property, the economy and our national security, making accurate weather forecasts more important than ever. That’s why we have been perfecting our remote sensing instruments and spacecraft to quickly get actionable environmental data in the hands of civilian and military forecasters.

Our extensive heritage in operational weather systems includes lead roles on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites. They launched in 2011 and 2017 respectively and have demonstrated exceptional performance as NOAA’s primary polar orbiting weather and environmental satellites.

Weather & Environment

Click here to learn how Ball Aerospace instruments and spacecraft support actionable environmental intelligence.
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Next Generation Weather Systems

An Industry Leader in Operational Weather Technology

Illustration of Satellites in orbit.
Operational environmental satellites play a key role in protecting the public and the economy by collecting critical observations of the atmosphere, ocean and land surface.  Satellite observations drive the Nation’s prediction systems used by public agencies and private companies to forecast daily weather and extreme weather events. As stakeholders decide what the next generation of space-based operational weather systems will look like, Ball has focused internal resources on developing technologies and mission solutions that are aligned with the priorities of our partners, including NOAA and the Department of Defense.

In June 2020, NOAA selected Ball Aerospace for four, six-month study contracts that will inform mission, spacecraft and instrument concepts for future operational weather architectures and Earth observation capabilities. Ball is also collaborating on a fifth study contract. Several of the studies further ongoing internal development work under our Ball Operational Weather Instrument Evolution (BOWIE) initiative.

The five study contracts include:

  • Auroral Imager in a Tundra orbit instrument concept
  • BOWIE Microwave Sounder instrument concept
  • BOWIE Compact Hyperspectral Infrared Observations (CHIRO) instrument concept
  • BOWIE Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) IR Sounder instrument concept
  • Joint LEO Sounding Mission Study mission concept
Global Precipitation

Global Precipitation

The Gold Standard

Global precipitation data is critical to accurately forecasting extreme weather events, and to understanding Earth’s water and energy cycles. The launch of our Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI) aboard NASA’s GPM satellite ushered in a new era in advanced measurement of rain, ice and snowfall around the world.

GMI measures small precipitation particles in the atmosphere while a companion instrument built by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency provides a 3D view of a column of precipitation. Together, the instruments give scientists an unprecedented and highly accurate view of small precipitation particles, making forecasts more accurate. GMI’s high accuracy has set a “gold standard” for calibrating the other instruments in the eight-satellite GPM constellation. With a three-hour data refresh, the GPM constellation can feed timely data into Numerical Weather Prediction models, enabling forecasters to issue earlier and improved weather predictions.

GPM Microwave Imager

Learn about how Ball and NASA are part of an international mission to improve climates.
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CALIPSO

CALIPSO

We built the LIDAR instrument and communications for this climate study mission.
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CIRiS

CIRiS

Small but mighty, the CIRiS instrument demonstrates innovative technology.
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Cloudsat

Cloudsat

We built this long-lasting spacecraft which is still providing data due to our innovations.
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GEMS/TEMPO

GEMS/TEMPO

Our GEMS and TEMPO instruments will help monitor air pollution over the Asia-Pacific region and North America, respectively.
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GMI

GMI

Our GMI instrument provides highly accurate global precipitation measurements.
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GPIM

GPIM

A Ball-led team tests the use of a new green fuel on-orbit.
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Landsat/OLI

Landsat/OLI

Ball Aerospace built several advanced sensors and cryocoolers for the Landsat 8 and 9 missions.
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MethaneSAT

MethaneSAT

Ball Aerospace is developing the high-performance advanced spectrometer instrument for MethaneSAT which will locate and measure methane emissions across the globe.
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MOIRE

MOIRE

We developed a game-changing approach to building very large aperture telescopes.
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NOAA-20

NOAA-20

This next-generation weather satellite was built and integrated by Ball.

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OMPS

OMPS

Our Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite instruments improve environmental data records.

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OAWL - Wind LIDAR

OAWL - Wind LIDAR

Space-based LIDAR technology for new science, tactical and commercial
applications.
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QuickSCAT

QuickSCAT

NASA’s QuickSCAT is designed to measure near-surface wind speed and direction under all weather and cloud conditions.
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SAGE

SAGE

Our SAGE III instrument was built to help scientists monitor Earth’s pollution levels.
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SBUV/2

SBUV/2

Our SBUV/2 instruments helped discover the ozone hole above Antarctica in 1987.
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Suomi NPP

Suomi NPP

The Ball-built spacecraft provides accurate data for weather prediction models.
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DSCOVR

DSCOVR

We helped build the NISTAR instrument for this mission measuring solar activity.
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