The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is NASA's next generation airborne astronomical observatory. The facility consists of a 747-SP modified to accommodate a 2.5 meter telescope. SOFIA is expected to fly an average of 140 science flights per year over it's 20 year lifetime, and will commence operations in early 2005. The SOFIA telescope is mounted aft of the wings on the port side of the aircraft and is articulated through a range of 20 deg to 60 deg of elevation. A significant problem in future SOFIA operations is that of scheduling Facility Instrument (E) flights in support of the SOFIA General Investigator (GI) program. GIs are expected to propose small numbers of observations, and many observations must be grouped together to make up single flights. Approximately 70 GI flight per year are expected, with 5-15 observations per flight.


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    Title :

    High and Dry: Trading Water Vapor, Fuel and Observing Time for SOFIA


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    International Symposium Geoscience and Remote Sensing ; 2005 ; San Diego, CA, United States


    Publication date :

    2005-01-21


    Type of media :

    Preprint


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English





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