Taylor said the investment in the expansion reflects Balls confidence in its own abilities and in its customers.
He joked that the federal government is a bad client.
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Polis spoke of the threat that the budget crisis in Washington and possible sequestration posed to companies such as Ball that do a lot of government work.
We are very innovative and very cost effective, and weve been able to win projects that demonstrate those two qualities,education. he said.
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The elected officials and Ball executives opened the door to the new cility to the opening music from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
From left,La BoTiCa De La KeKa cortes de cabello nosotras. Ball Aerospaces Mark Scheel, Project Engineer and Grant Poly, Project Control Analyst look over a model of the JPSS-1 Joint Polar Satellite System during a tour of the companys new 90,000-square-foot cility expansion at the Ball Aerospace Fisher Integration Facility in Boulder on Friday ( PAUL AIKEN )
We now have the ability to fulfill very large missions for the country, he said.
Thanks for putting up with us, because we do need the infrastructure, he said.
You are a difference, and your jurisdiction is the world, he said.
The new cility increases the cleanroom space by 60 percent and includes state-of-the-art environmental testing systems and a large thermal vacuum chamber to test spacecraft.
Those include NASAs Joint Polar Satellite System, the WorldView-3 remote-sensing satellite for Longmont-based DigitalGlobe, the Sentinel Mission for the B612 Foundation and multiple Department of Defense and national security missions.
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Gardner said the work done by Balls satellites -- from tracking extreme weather to helping troops get real-time information -- saves lives.
The cility will allow Ball to build four to six spacecraft at the same time, double its current capacity. Those craft can be shaken, heated, cooled and subjected to radiation to simulate the effects of space flight, and they can be shipped directly from the cility in specially designed trucks.
Balls Fisher Integration Facility in Boulder, represents the culmination of 10 years of planning and will allow the company to design, build, test and ship satellites and instruments from one plant.
Click on any photo to see full galleryBall Aerospace and Technologies Corp. officially opened the doors Friday to a 90, dna2161708.typepad.com000-square-foot, $75 million expansion that will allow Ball to provide a full service operation to its civilian and government customers.
Ball CEO David Taylor said the company already has work to fill roughly half the new space and will pursue new projects to fill the remaining capacity.
A nuBall Aerospace opens expanded Boulder cility that doubles capacity? satellite companiesmber of Boulder County elected officials, including Rep. Jared Polis, a Boulder Democrat, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Aurora, and Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, education news whose district includes Longmont, attended the opening.
