Ball Aerospace and Technologies (NYSE: BLL) has been awarded a potential $421 million contract modification by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to deliver ozone-monitoring instruments for the Joint Polar Satellite System follow-on JPSS-3 and JPSS-4 missions.
Ball Aerospace said Friday it will manufacture, test and deliver Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite instruments — which contain a nadir sensor and electronics module — under the 10-year sole-source award.
OMPS will work to track ozone layer health and measure ozone concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere, Ball Aerospace added.
Jim Oschmann, vice president and general manager of the company’s civil space arm, said Ball Aerospace sensors have worked to track and mitigate potential threats in the ozone layer since the mid-1980s.
OMPS has helped monitor volcanic eruptions, route aircraft around the eruptions and monitor air quality in the upper atmosphere, according to Sarah Lipscy, OMPS deputy program manager and project scientist.
Ball Aerospace noted OMPS is currently deployed on the joint NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership mission.
The instruments also work to collect data for the Ball Aerospace-built Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet radiometer-2 and the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer as part of efforts to comply with the U.S. treaty obligation to track ozone depletion under the Montreal Protocol, the company added.
