The final instrument to fly aboard NASA's National Preparatory Project (NPP) weather satellite has been installed and is preparing for integration at Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp.

The Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), an advanced atmospheric sensor built by ITT, arrived at Ball's Colorado facility on June 18.

CrIS is the last of five instruments to be integrated onto the Ball Aerospace-designed and built NPP spacecraft bus, under contract to NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center.

The five-instrument suite will collect and distribute remotely sensed land, ocean, and atmospheric data to the meteorological and global climate change communities.

It will provide atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological productivity and cloud and aerosol properties.

Ball will complete integration of the CrIS instrument by mid-July. NPP is expected to launch in late 2011.