The company began in 1956 as a spinoff of a CU research group.
Ball is involved with projects in the government and commercial marketplace.
Ball has prominent roles in many NASA science programs. In addition to its work on the Hubble Space Telescope, the company is designing the Next Generation Telescope that will see distant galaxies in greater detail and less time than Hubble Space Telescope. Employees have built 28 spacecraft. In 1984, the company launched a spacecraft to gather information for long-range weather forecasts. This accurate data is important for research on oceanography, global warming, and long-range weather forecasting.