Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. expects to have initiated the procurement of the majority of avionics and electronics components required to build the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1) spacecraft bus by the end of March 2012.

Ball Aerospace is leading the design and development effort for NOAA's JPSS-1 satellite, and building the JPSS-1 Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS).

"In a challenging budget environment, Ball Aerospace is gratified to have 2012 funding secured and to be making progress on the JPSS-1 spacecraft," said Cary Ludtke, vice president general manager for Ball's Civil and Operational Space business unit.

Ball expects to ramp-up JPSS-1 spacecraft production work in the summer of 2012, with a Delta Critical Design Review scheduled for September of this year.

Assembly of the spacecraft will begin in 2013. Satellite bus completion is expected in 2014 followed by instrument integration and satellite level environmental test.

The JPSS operational weather system includes the satellites and sensors that support civil weather and climate measurements in the afternoon orbit, as well as a ground system.

These satellites deliver approximately 90 percent of the information collected for numerical forecasting models that generate critical weather forecasts and convey warnings to the public about climate and weather events.

In addition to the spacecraft, Ball Aerospace will manufacture, test and deliver the OMPS for the five-instrument JPSS-1 suite.

The instrument is similar to the OMPS built by Ball and successfully launched aboard the NPP satellite, in October 2011. Ball Aerospace also built the NPP satellite.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will operate the JPSS satellite following its scheduled launch in 2016.