SOFIA: Flying the Telescope

The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is an international cooperative development and operations program between the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the German Space Agency, DLR (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft-und Raumfahrt). SOFIA is a 2.5 meter, optical/infrared/sub-millimeter telescope mounted in a Boeing model 747SP-21 aircraft and will be used for many basic astronomical observations performed at stratospheric altitudes. It will accommodate installation of different focal plane instruments with in-flight accessibility provided by investigators selected from the international science community. The Facility operational lifetime is planned to be greater than 20 years. This presentation will present the results of developmental testing of SOFIA, including analysis, envelope expansion and the first operational mission. It will describe a brief history of open cavities in flight, how NASA designed and tested SOFIAs cavity, as well as flight test results. It will focus on how the test team achieved key milestones by systematically and efficiently reducing the number of test points to only those absolutely necessary to achieve mission requirements, thereby meeting all requirements and saving the potential loss of program funding. Finally, it will showcase examples of the observatory in action and the first operational mission of the observatory, illustrating the usefulness of the system to the international scientific community. Lessons learned on how to whittle a mountain of test points into a manageable sum will be presented at the conclusion.