Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Broomfield is one of five companies that will develop mission concepts for demonstrating solar-electric propulsion in space.
NASA awarded each of the five companies with contracts of up to $600,000. The technology is considered important for future deep-space human-exploration missions.
Ball officials said they will work with NASA to define a mission concept that will demonstrate the solar-electric propulsion technologies, capabilities, and infrastructure required for sustainable, affordable human presence in space.
“Moving payloads reliably and cost-effectively from low Earth orbit to high-energy orbits is critical for deep-space human and robotic exploration and relies on the systems engineering expertise Ball is known,” said Cary Ludtke, Ball’s vice president of civil and operational space business unit.
NASA will use the studies to plan and implement a future flight demonstration mission that will test and validate key capabilities and technologies.
