NASA's
Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy left Texas for Southern
California on May 31 to continue engineering flight tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. A consortium led by Universities
Space Research Association (USRA) developed SOFIA as a world-class infrared
astronomical observatory for NASA and DLR, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center). L-3
Communications Integrated Systems, located in Waco, Texas, installed the
German-built 2.5-meter infrared telescope and made other major modifications to
the 747 over the past several years. The SETI Institute with its partner, the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific, leads the education and public outreach
program for SOFIA as a part of the USRA consortium.
SOFIA's maiden flight as an
observatory occurred on April 27 from Waco, Texas. This 2-hour flight was soon
followed by additional engineering flights to assure the NASA
Dryden team that SOFIA was ready for her ferry flight to California.
On
May 21, Erik
Lindbergh, grandson of Charles Lindbergh, re-christened the Boeing 747-SP
that was named for his famous grandfather and originally christened by his
wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, as the Clipper Lindbergh under Pan American
ownership. This historic celebration of the aircraft that has been transformed
into the infrared observatory, SOFIA, coincided with the 80th
anniversary of Lindbergh's daring solo flight across the Atlantic from Garden
City, New York to Paris, France.
The
observatory now has a new home in desert of Southern California. At Dryden, SOFIA is scheduled to undergo installation and integration of mission systems and a
multi-phase flight test program at Dryden over the next three years that is
expected to lead to a full operational capability to conduct astronomy missions
in about 2010.
During
its expected 20-year lifetime, SOFIA will be capable of "Great
Observatory" class astronomical science, providing astronomers with
access to the visible, infrared and sub-millimeter spectrum with optimized
performance in the mid-infrared to sub-millimeter range. SOFIA's science and
mission operations are managed jointly by the Universities Space Research
Association and the Deutsches SOFIA Institut, and are based at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field near San Jose, Calif. Once operational in the 2009-2010
period, SOFIA will be the world's primary infrared observatory during a mission
lasting up to 20 years, as well as an outstanding laboratory for developing and
testing instrumentation and detector technology. For Education and Public
Outreach, SOFIA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program will train teams of
educators to participate in flight missions, which will allow this unique NASA
Mission to reach schools and the public across the US and Germany.
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