Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




SPACE SCOPES
NASA Reinstalls Main Mirror In SOFIA Airborne Observatory
by Staff Writers
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Oct 16, 2008


In coming months, both the telescope and the aircraft's telescope cavity door system will be adjusted, leading to open-door ground operational testing. These activities will be followed by six to eight open-door flight tests next spring to study the handling qualities of the aircraft as air flows over and into the telescope cavity.

Engineers and technicians from NASA, the German Space Agency and the Deutsches SOFIA Institut recently reinstalled the German-built primary mirror assembly into NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).

Technicians removed the glass mirror from the modified Boeing 747SP airborne observatory in April 2008 and transported to NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., where it received its reflective aluminum coating in a vacuum chamber in June 2008. The coating, five one-millionths of an inch thick, will be reapplied as necessary during the 20-year life of the program.

"We had completed system tests of our mirror coater but this is the first time we've actually coated SOFIA's mirror. The team and equipment performed flawlessly and the results are magnificent," said Ed Austin, SOFIA science project manager at NASA Ames.

The mirror assembly was transported back to NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., in mid-September and reinstalled Oct. 8, 2008.

"The reinstallation of the mirror is a significant program milestone on the path to science observations with the SOFIA observatory in the summer of 2009," said Bob Meyer, SOFIA program manager at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

In coming months, both the telescope and the aircraft's telescope cavity door system will be adjusted, leading to open-door ground operational testing. These activities will be followed by six to eight open-door flight tests next spring to study the handling qualities of the aircraft as air flows over and into the telescope cavity.

The upper rigid cavity door will be opened incrementally at various altitudes to determine the aero-acoustic effects, or buffeting, on the aircraft and telescope systems. NASA and Deutsches SOFIA Institut (DSI) engineers considered the challenges of aero-acoustic effects on the telescope when designing the cavity system, completing wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics analyses to minimize these effects.

SOFIA's state-of-the-art infrared telescope and some of the observatory's scientific instruments will be tested on the ground in the next few months in preparation for the first open-door test flights.

The optical performance of the telescope system will be checked using the High-speed Photometer for Occultations, or HIPO, science instrument built for SOFIA at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.

HIPO takes images of the sky rapidly at wavelengths the human eye can see. Once HIPO has been used to check the basic characteristics of the SOFIA observatory, the two infrared instruments intended for the first scientific flights will be mounted for more ground observation tests.

After these ground tests are complete, a short series of initial astronomical science flights are planned. During the six scheduled flights, the Faint Object Infrared Camera, (FORCAST), from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and the German Receiver for Astronomy at THz Frequencies (GREAT) from the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy in Bonn, Germany, will conduct SOFIA's first science observations.

SOFIA incorporates a 2.5-meter diameter infrared telescope in a 747SP aircraft that will carry the telescope into the stratosphere to conduct astronomical research. The observatory also includes a ground-based science center.

SOFIA is a joint program between NASA and the German Space Agency, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR). The SOFIA program is currently managed at NASA Dryden and the aircraft is based at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility, Palmdale, Calif. NASA Ames manages the SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the University Space Research Association (USRA) and the DSI.

.


Related Links
SOFIA
Space Telescope News and Technology at Skynightly.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








SPACE SCOPES
ANGST In The Milky Way Neighborhood
Twin Cities MN (SPX) Oct 15, 2008
The stars in Hollywood may conceal their ages from snoops, but the ones in the sky can't escape the cosmic paparazzi. Even if they keep their distance-up to 13 million light-years of it-they have nowhere to hide from astrophysicists like the University of Minnesota's Evan Skillman. Skillman, a professor of astronomy, and graduate student Dan Weisz are part of a team that surveyed about 14 ... read more


SPACE SCOPES
UK Moon Camera Ready For Blast Off

Lunar Prospecting Robot To Be Field Tested On Hawaii's Mauna Kea

Japan Maps Lunar Far Side Gravity Field

Chandrayaan-1 Ready For First Indian Mission To Moon

SPACE SCOPES
Young Researchers To Explore The Mysteries Of Our Solar System

Phoenix Weathers Dust Storm

The Sun Is Setting On Phoenix

Opportunity Takes A Victory Lap

SPACE SCOPES
Argentina Wants Russian Space Assistance

Russian Space Tourist To Lose Out To Kazakh Astronaut

Spinoff 2008 Highlights NASA Innovations In Everyday Life

Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle

SPACE SCOPES
China To Launch FY-4 Weather Satellite Around 2013

Shenzhou 7 Astronauts In Good Health

Chinese Scientists Start Studying Samples From Shenzhou-7

China Sets Sights On First Space Station

SPACE SCOPES
Expedition 18 Crew Docks With Space Station

Expedition 18 Crew Launches From Baikonur

Space station crew might not be expanded

Expedition 18 Crew To Launch From Baikonur

SPACE SCOPES
NASA To Webcast IBEX Spacecraft Launch

New ASTRA 1M Satellite To Be Launched On 31 October

Ariane 5 Is Readied For A Dual-Payload Mission

Arianespace Flight 186 Set For End Of November

SPACE SCOPES
Exotic Weather On Distant Worlds

Tides Have Major Impact On Planet Habitability

NASA Supercomputer Shows How Dust Rings Point To Exo-Earths

A Strategy For Detecting Earth-Like Planets

SPACE SCOPES
MSV Awarded Patents For Next-Gen Satellite-Terrestrial Comms Network

Theory Explains Mysterious Nature Of Glass

Youngsters Flying High After Winning Top UK Space Competition

Clyde Space Delivers Battery Charge Controllers For RASAT




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement