NASA Partners With Broomfield Firm For $242M Spacecraft Mission

BROOMFIELD, CO – NASA will partner with Broomfield-based Ball Aerospace as part of the new $242 million SPHEREx mission, targeted to launch in 2023, the space agency said.

The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission is a planned two-year mission which will gather information about the evolution of the universe, the NASA said in a press release.

SPHEREx will survey the sky in "optical as well as near-infrared light which, though not visible to the human eye, serves as a powerful tool for answering cosmic questions," the agency said. Astronomers will use the mission to gather data on more than 300 million galaxies, as well as more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way.

According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission will "create a map of the entire sky in 96 different color bands, far exceeding the color resolution of previous all-sky maps," the agency said. It also will identify targets for more detailed study by future missions, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.

Ball Aerospace in Broomfield, will provide the "SPHEREx spacecraft and mission integration," the agency said. The Korea Astronomy & Space Science Institute in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, will contribute test equipment and science analysis, the agency said.

Caltech space scientists will work with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop the mission payload. JPL will also manage the mission.

The mission will use the company's Ball Configurable Platform (BCP) spacecraft, designed for "flexible, cost-effective applications, using a common spacecraft bus and standard payload interfaces to reduce cost, streamline payload accommodation and minimize delivery time," the company said in a statement.

"Ball Aerospace is committed to supporting the goals of NASA and the science community to explore and understand our universe," said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace in a statement. "Our extensive heritage across a wide breadth of NASA science and exploration mission classes informs our development of technology that will enable the science of tomorrow - providing science at any scale."

Ball Aerospace, headquartered in Broomfield, employs about 420 people, according to the Broomfield Economic Development Office. The company was recently ranked by Forbes as the best company for diversity in the country.

To find out more about the mission go to the NASA website here.

Related: Colo. Company Ranks Top For Diversity In U.S.: Forbes

Related: Here Are Broomfield's Largest Employers

Image via Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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