SOFIA Makes An Entrance

One of the highlights of the show at Edwards Air Force Base was the appearance of NASA and DLR’s SOFIA airframe.  A Boeing 747SP that has been converted for infra-red astronomy, this was my first time seeing SOFIA.  It has a large telescope mounted in the rear fuselage with a huge rotating door that opens up when at cruising altitude – above the majority of the atmospheric blockage to IR – to allow the telescope to make observations.

SOFIA is being retired.  There is a debate about whether this is purely budget related or whether the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (which also observes in the infra red spectrum), means that it is no longer needed.  Whatever the reasons, it is being retired and this show was a bit of a swan song.  As part of this, they actually opened up the door for the telescope which, apparently, is a first since it was first commissioned other than while it was observing.

The plane made a run in from show left making a cool pass but this was the side without the telescope visible.  They then turned around and made a banked pass along the crowd line with the telescope visible.  At first I thought that they had blown it because they had a nice bank angle on but were lining up too soon.  However, they straightened up for a while before bringing the bank back on and giving the crowd a good view.

They landed after this and taxied in to where I was waiting but that will be a separate post.

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