Ball Aerospace/NASA Achieve Key Technology Milestone for James WebbSpace Telescope (Forwarded)

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

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Jan. 8, 2007

Ball Aerospace/NASA Achieve Key Technology Milestone for James Webb Space
Telescope

Boulder, Colo. -- A team of engineers from Ball Aerospace & Technologies
Corp. and NASA have successfully met the criteria needed to demonstrate
Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL-6) for the Wavefront Sensing and Control
for the James Webb Space Telescope, a measure used by NASA to assess the
maturity of evolving technologies.

The Ball Aerospace-built one-meter James Webb Space Telescope Testbed,
designed to mature the telescope's critical subsystems and reduce risk,
was used to demonstrate the critical end-to-end Wavefront Sensing and
Control (WFS&C) process. A TRL-6 level rating means a system has been
tested successfully in a relevant operational environment. This milestone
proves the maturity of sophisticated image process and control software
that will be needed to bring JWST into alignment following launch.

Ball Aerospace is the principal optical subcontractor for the JWST
program, led by prime contractor Northrop Grumman Space Technology, under
a contract from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, MD.
The software and algorithm technology that achieved this major milestone
was developed by a team of engineers from Ball Aerospace, NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The size of the JWST telescope requires that it be launched in a stowed or
folded configuration and unfolded following space deployment. As a
result, the primary and secondary mirrors will be aligned on orbit, making
the accuracy of JWST's WFS&C all the more critical. Once on orbit, imagery
from a science camera aboard JWST is down-linked to Earth, where
algorithms determine the optimal positions for the 19-mirror segments (18
primary mirror segments plus the secondary mirror). Resultant commands
are then up-linked to phase the telescope.

"The same technological ingenuity Ball Aerospace applied to correcting the
Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror in 2002 is being applied to
advancing the optics for the JWST observatory," said David L. Taylor,
president and chief executive officer of Ball Aerospace & Technologies
Corp.

The 6.6-meter JWST is designed to study infrared light from objects that
formed in the beginning of the universe. It will be the first civilian
space-based observatory to use an actively controlled, segmented mirror
architecture when launched in 2013. The primary mirror segment assembly
passed the milestone necessary to demonstrate Technology Readiness Review
(TRL) 6 in 2006.

Ball Aerospace celebrated its 50th year in business in 2006. The company
began building pointing controls for military rockets in 1956, and later
won a contract to build one of NASA's first spacecraft, the Orbiting Solar
Observatory. Over the years, the company has been responsible for numerous
technological and scientific firsts' and now acts as a technology
innovator for important national missions.

Ball Corporation is a supplier of high-quality metal and plastic packaging
products and owns Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. Ball reported 2005
sales of $5.8 billion and employs 15,600 people.

IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://www.ballaerospace.com/media/i...wst_mirror.jpg (3.56MB)]
A Ball Aerospace engineer inspects the James Webb Space Telescope testbed.
(Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.)