It isn’t off to the scrapyard fairly but for the historic plane that carried NASA’s flying telescope.
On Sept. 29, NASA and the German House Company (DLR) retired their joint Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) plane, a modified Boeing 747SP that lofted a 106-inch (2.7-meter) reflective telescope on in a single day flights.Â
After almost 20 years of flying as a business plane for PanAm and United, adopted by eight years of science missions for NASA and DLR, SOFIA formally has a retirement house: the Pima Air & House Museum in Tucson, Ariz. On Tuesday (Dec. 13), the plane will take its ultimate flight, journeying from its former house, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, to Pima, based on a NASA statement.
Associated: NASA’s flying telescope is coming to the end of its mission but leaves a strong science legacy
The Pima staff remains to be assessing plans for the preservation and show of SOFIA — plane taxidermy, if you’ll — however the airplane will finally go on view to the general public.Â
At Pima, which has six hangers and 80 acres of outside show grounds, SOFIA will be part of different retired NASA plane, together with the primary Super Guppy cargo plane that shuttled Saturn V rocket components in the course of the Apollo program, and the KC-135 “Weightless Surprise V,” which flew “zero G” parabolic arcs. Â
“The SOFIA mission has a strong potential to encourage, from its discoveries in regards to the unknown in our universe, to the engineering achievements that broke new floor, to the worldwide cooperation that made all of it potential,” Paul Hertz, senior advisor for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA and former head of astrophysics for the company, stated within the assertion. “We’re excited SOFIA will proceed to interact a various new technology of scientists, engineers, and explorers.”
A few of SOFIA’s biggest discoveries embrace discovering water in sunlit areas of the moon, mapping magnetic fields in close by galaxies, and the first observation of the very first molecule within the universe after the Big Bang: helium hydride.
Comply with Stefanie Waldek on Twitter @StefanieWaldek. Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
