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Ball Aerospace Begins Integration of WorldView-2 Imaging Instrument
Last update: 9:49 a.m. EDT Sept. 3, 2008

BOULDER and LONGMONT, Colo., Sept 03, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via
COMTEX/ -- Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and DigitalGlobe
announced today that Ball has begun the integration of the completed
imaging instrument for the next-generation WorldView-2 commercial
imaging satellite being built for DigitalGlobe. WorldView-2 will
expand DigitalGlobe's collection capabilities by nearly one million
square kilometers per day, enable intra-day revisits to a specific
geographic area, and enhance DigitalGlobe's ability to collect up-to-
date imagery for customer needs.

When launched in the third quarter of 2009, WorldView-2 will expand
DigitalGlobe's capabilities and product offerings by increasing
collection rates and providing enhanced multi-spectral imagery.
WorldView-2 will make DigitalGlobe the only commercial earth imagery
provider with 8-band multi-spectral capability, which enables many
more spectral applications through a more robust color palette for
crisper color imagery products and services and enhanced analysis of
the earth's surface. WorldView-2 will join the highly successful Ball-
built predecessors on orbit, WorldView-1, launched in 2007, and
QuickBird, in 2001.

"The excellent progress we're making on the WorldView-2 spacecraft
results from our proven record with the BCP product line," said Ball
Aerospace President and CEO, David L. Taylor. "When launched,
WorldView-2's advanced Control Moment Gyros (CMGs), high collection
capacity, and rich multispectral capabilities will provide
DigitalGlobe's customers with precise mapping and change detection at
unprecedented quantities and spectral qualities."

"We are pleased with the progress of WorldView-2 and are looking
forward to making its impressive capabilities available to our
commercial, civil government and defense and intelligence customers
late next year," said Jill Smith, DigitalGlobe's president and CEO.
"We have an existing constellation of sub-meter satellites that
already provides almost one million square kilometers per day of
collection capacity. The addition of WorldView-2 will significantly
enhance our collection capacity, revisit rate and enable more world
imagery products and services to more customers."

Integration of the WorldView-2 telescope, the integrated focal plane,
and associated electronics will be followed by system performance and
environmental testing. WorldView-2 was recently moved to Ball's new,
state-of-the-art clean room and integration facility to accommodate
the height of the integrated Ball Commercial Platform (BCP) 5000
spacecraft bus and WorldView-2 Instrument. The BCP 5000 spacecraft is
designed to handle the next-generation optical and synthetic aperture
radar remote sensing payloads and is currently meeting or exceeding
all performance specifications on the WorldView-1 satellite. The high-
performance BCP 5000 has a design life of more than seven years, and
provides a platform with increased power, resolution, agility, target
selection, flexibility, transmission capability and data storage.

All Ball Aerospace designed and built WorldView-2 flight boxes and
engineering development units have been delivered to the program,
including a precision temperature control electronics board.
WorldView-2's advanced CMGs, currently demonstrating superb
performance for WorldView-1, are also ready for integration. Ball
Aerospace is under contract with DigitalGlobe to provide mission
system engineering, design and manufacture of the spacecraft bus and
integration of the instrument, EMI/EMC and environmental testing of
the integrated satellite and on-orbit checkout.