Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. said Oct. 13 it had completed a preshipment review for STPSat-2, the first spacecraft built under the U.S. Defense Department’s Space Test Program Standard Interface Vehicle (STP-SIV) program.
STPSat-2 is slated to launch from Alaska’s Kodiak Launch Complex in May aboard a Minotaur 4 rocket.
STPSat-2 will carry two payloads: the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Phenomenology Experiment and the Office of Naval Research’s Ocean Data Telemetry Microsat Link.
Ball already has begun work on the second STP-SIV spacecraft, dubbed STPSat-3, under a contract awarded earlier this year by the Air Force Space Development & Test Wing’s Space Development Group a Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, N.M.