Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. has won three research contracts from NASA totaling $7.1 million to support Earth science programs and studies.

On two of the contracts, Ball Aerospace will assist the agency’s Science Mission Directorate’s Instrument Incubator Program, which fosters the development of Earth science instrument subsystem technologies.

One of those contracts will use flash arrays to profile vegetation canopies from space, and another will demonstrate how instruments can accurately measure global tropospheric winds to improve weather forecasting.

Under the third contract, Ball will assist with a study led by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop laser technology for gravity and climate studies.

NASA’s Instrument Incubator Program provides instrument and instrument subsystem technologies for the National Research Council’s 10-year-long Earth Science survey mission.

Ball Aerospace, of Boulder, Colo., is a unit of Ball Corp. The parent company is based in Dayton, Ohio.