SOFIA Visits NASA-Ames then Moves to Permanent Base at Palmdale (California) Airport

Photos below

January 14-15, 2008

The world's largest airborne observatory briefly visited NASA Ames Research Center.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has been conducting flight tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., and visited the Bay Area on Monday, Jan. 14. Ames employees were invited to bring their families to see the observatory during its brief visit that was not open to the general public.

SOFIA features a 2.5-meter (98.4-inch) diameter infrared telescope mounted in a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft. Flying at 41,000 to 45,000 feet, it will enable scientific observations that Earth-based telescopes cannot accomplish. After flight tests are completed in a couple of years, SOFIA's science and mission operations will be managed by NASA Ames.

During the one-day visit to NASA Ames employees, family members and news media representatives had the opportunity to see the highly modified Boeing 747SP with the German-built 2.5-meter (98.4-inch) infrared telescope installed in its rear fuselage. After tours of the aircraft and interviews of project scientists by San Francisco Bay Area news media, several thousand Ames employees and their families had the opportunity to tour SOFIA during an open house that stretched well into the evening.

Following the visit to Ames, SOFIA flew to the newly established Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility operated by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Palmdale, Calif., where it will be based during additional development, flight testing and its operational lifetime.SOFIA science operations will continue to be managed by NASA Ames. 

SOFIA recently completed its first phase of flight testing that confirmed the structural integrity and performance of the modified Boeing 747SP while carrying SOFIA's 37,500-lb. infrared telescope assembly. The tests verified the flight performance of the highly modified aircraft with the telescope's external cavity door closed, including aerodynamics, structural loads, handling qualities, stability and control and validation of operating systems. Additionally, ability of the telescope assembly's control system to maintain exact tracking of a celestial object while the aircraft is traveling and maneuvering was checked out during the last flight in the series in late December, 2007. 

Over the next nine to 10 months, SOFIA will undergo major telescope subsystems installation and integration in preparation for the next phase of flight tests with the telescope's external cavity door open, scheduled to begin in late 2008. "First light" astronomical science data is expected to be obtained with the telescope in early 2009, and regular astronomy observation missions are planned to begin with five specialized instruments in 2011, leading to full operational capability in about 2014.  

The current integration and checkout work and future flight tests are intended to verify that the unique airborne observatory is ready to perform its planned astronomical science mission over its expected 20-year lifetime. Cruising above more than 99 percent of the atmospheric water vapor at 41,000 to 45,000 feet altitude, SOFIA will enable astronomical observations that Earth-based telescopes cannot equal.

Additonal article by SETI's Edna DeVore on Space.com

SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), a Boeing 747SP modified to carry a 20-ton astronomical research telescope, makes a flyby of Moffett Field Federal Airfield and NASA's Ames Research Center near San Jose, California just after noon on Monday January 14, 2008. The NASA F-18 chase plane accompanied the observatory on its short flight from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in southern California. (Neill Callis / USRA SOFIA)	SOFIA makes its landing approach at Moffett Federal Airfield, seen here behind its predecessor, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a C-141 cargo jet outfitted by NASA with a 0.9-meter (36-inch) diameter telescope that flew scientific missions from its base at NASA-Ames from 1975 to 1996. SOFIA's telescope by comparison is 2.5 meters (98 inches) in diameter. (Neill Callis / USRA SOFIA)
SOFIA touches down at Moffett Field on January 14, 2008. The retractable fuselage door over the cavity containing the telescope can be seen as a slight bulge behind the wings and forward of the tail. DLR on the tail designates the German Aerospace Agency that has a 20% share with NASA in the SOFIA program. (Neill Callis / USRA SOFIA)	Some of the NASA-Ames employees plus family members and friends, estimated to total more than 3500 people, who visited SOFIA and the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO; out of view to the right) during a four-hour open house at Moffett Federal Air Field on the afternoon of January 14, 2008. (Janet Beegle / NASA)