Boulder-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. won a contract to build a sensor for a South Korean geostationary environmental monitoring satellite, officials announced Monday.

Officials for the locally based division of Broomfield's Ball Corp. said the contract not only could open the door for more international contracts for Ball Aerospace, but also serves as another piece of the puzzle in monitoring the air and environment over Asia.

Under the contract awarded by the Korean Aerospace Research Institute, Ball Aerospace will build the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer for the GEO-KOMPSAT-2B satellite that has a scheduled launch of 2018.

The spectrometer will be designed to monitor air pollution for the Korean peninsula and the Asia-Pacific region.

The satellite and sensor, when launched, would complement other geostationary satellites -- among them the Ball Aerospace-provided Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution spectrometer -- positioned around the globe to monitor air quality.

"It really provides an enormous service for all the other countries of Asia," said Liam Weston, Ball Aerospace's senior manager for commercial and international business development.

The contract with KARI has been three years in the making and also marks a significant step for Ball Aerospace in developing its international efforts, he said.

"This is a good opportunity for us to show ... that we have the ability to export our hardware," he said.

Ball Aerospace beat out Dutch Space, of Holland, and Astrium, of Germany, he said.

Financial terms were not immediately available and Weston declined to disclose specific details.

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Boulder-based Ball Aerospace to build sensor for South Korean satellite