For the U.S. instruments, a call for proposals for science instrument development was issued by USRA on April 8, 1997. Nineteen proposals covering a wide range of wavelengths and functionalities were received by the deadline of July 15, 1997 and were subsequently reviewed by a panel of scientific peers at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas on September 4-5, 1997. As a result of this peer review, seven proposals were recommended for development. The selection included three facility class instruments that will be delivered to the USRA operations center at Moffett Field.

     Call for Proposals for Science Instrument Development (1997)

A Call for Proposals for the next generation of SOFIA Science Instruments is tentatively scheduled for release sometime in 2006.