The sky is making way for a new astronomical tool.
It is wheels up on NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) as this modified Boeing 747SP fitted with a 2.7-meter German-built telescope makes a May 25 debut flight.
Flight of the airborne observatory is being called the start of a new era in astronomy. SOFIA is also mobile as it can travel to different places around the globe to observe transient events.
The 6 hour debut flight marks 13 years of work by hundreds of scientists and engineers around the world. Flying in high-altitude mode, SOFIA’s German-built telescope will measure radiation primarily in the infrared.
Flying at 35,000 to 45,000 feet, SOFIA will allow researchers to see phenomena that are obscured from the ground by atmospheric water vapor. But because it returns to the ground, researchers can change instruments and make adjustments and modifications that would be impossible with a space telescope.
SOFIA has a 16-by-23-foot door cut into the port side for the telescope and a bump near the rear of the plane that smoothes out airflow around the fuselage when the telescope door is open.
Five instruments are ready for use on SOFIA (one at a time), with many more in the pipeline.
First to fly is Cornell University’s FORCAST- and that stands for the Faint Object InfraRed Camera for the SOFIA Telescope.
This infrared camera can take 100 images per second, making it ideally suited for characterizing the telescope on its initial flights. On the debut flight, FORCAST will also measure the thermal emission from the telescope itself — vital information for every instrument to follow — and take infrared photos of test targets in the sky.
SOFIA’s development program is managed at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif. The aircraft is based at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale.
NASA’s Ames Research Center manages SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association and the Deutsches SOFIA Institute in Stuttgart, Germany.
By LD/CSE