Ball Aerospace & Technologies

They're still American.

Ball Aerospace was bought by them.

Yeah.

Okay.

The committee's 1996 report recommended a large, infrared-optimised telescope in space, with a primary mirror significantly bigger than Hubble's 2.4-metre aperture.

In 1997, NASA began funding industry study teams at Goddard Space Flight Centre and Ball Aerospace to explore how such a telescope could be built.

in 1998 a design study called the yardstick concept showed that a deployable six meter class telescope was technically feasible though challenging in 1999 nasa selected two companies lockheed martin and trw to begin more detailed Phase A studies and the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency joined the instrument design efforts.

In 2002, NASA selected the TRW and Ball Aerospace Design for the next phase of development and officially renamed the telescope the James Webb Space Telescope.

After James Webb, who led NASA from 1961 to 1968.

Shortly after the selection, Northrop Grumman acquired TRW, and Northrop Grumman became the primary contractor for building the telescope.

You know, it was the rocket scientists that taught me how, how to do the explanation 'cause they pushed me to my limit, 'cause I'm in Boulder, Colorado.

Ball Aerospace is here.

Literally rocket scientists were my patients.

But I c- I found that, you know, I'm a cartoonist, man, a- and, and I'm a performer.

The Korean Space Agency, KASI, donated a cold test chamber for us to test the telescope itself that came out to Caltech during development.

And then our normal partners helping us build the vehicle, it's BAE Systems, formerly Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, built the spacecraft bus that we operate and, and the telescope that houses the, the rest of the instrument.

So they've all been really great partners in building and s- launching and operating SPHEREx.

And there are others that were suppliers and, and contributors across the globe.