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The proceedings of the 2004 SOFIA Upper Deck Science Opportunities workshop are now posted here.
In response to the NRC decadal survey RFI, a paper "SOFIA Upper Deck Research Facility: A unique atmospheric observation platform for the next 20 years" was written. Full paper.
In response to a call from Dr. Ghassem Asrar of NASA HQ's Science Mission Directorate for "Exploration Science White Papers", we have summarized into a 2-page whitepaper the contributions to the SOFIA SURF Science Opportunities Workshop. Full text.
2004 June - In order to investigate the science questions that can be addressed in potential future research experiments on SOFIA's Upper Deck in the twenty years after deployment, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., hosted a SOFIA Upper Deck Science
Opportunities Workshop on June 22-23, 2004.
Goal: The primary product of this workshop was to clearly articulate important science questions that such upper deck experiments would address uniquely. Note that no decision has yet been taken for such future use of SOFIA's Upper Deck and any implementation will be only after normal airborne observatory operations have commenced.
The Scientific Organizing Committee consisted of
Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute),
Hansjuerg Jost (BAER Institute),
Mike Taylor (Utah State University),
Ray Russell (The Aerospace Corporation),
Tim Castellano (NASA Ames Research Center),
Frans Rietmeijer (University of New Mexico Albuquerque),
Hans Stenbaek-Nielsen (University of Alaska Fairbanks),
Leonhard Pfister (NASA Ames Research Center)
The workshop is supported by NASA's APRA program and Earth Science Enterprise research programs. The workshop and its reporting is facilitated by the NASA Ames SOFIA Program Office and will be executed by the SETI Institute and the BAER Institute.
Some examples of potential future upper deck research are outlined here.
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Outside view of Upper Deck (top row windows) with future scientists for scale.
2007 November - SOFIA is currently undergoing closed-door flight testing at NASA, Dryden Flight Research Center. Following the completion of the closed-door flights and Telescope Assembly checkout flights, the aircraft will transfer permanently to the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility (DAOF) in Palmdale, California. This is planned for January 2008. Once at the DAOF, the aircraft will undergo extensive Cavity Door System (CDS), cavity insulation, and Telescope Assembly work in preparation for the 2009 Early Science flights. The aircraft will continue to perform science and development work in parallel from 2009 through 2014 until the aircraft is fully operational. Once fully operational, SOFIA will be the world's primary infrared observatory during a mission lasting up to 20 years, as well as an outstanding laboratory for developing and testing instrumentation and detector technology.
2008 Jan 15 - Update on SOFIA
2008 January - During the Quadrantid MAC mission, Juergen Wolf, SOFIA scenior scientist from DSI at NASA Ames, field tested a prototype camera for the SOFIA Airborne Observatory to study its sensitivity to cosmic ray impacts in a flight from San Jose to San Jose via the Arctic circle.
More information.
2007 September - Using two privately owned business jets, some of the participating researchers in the SOFIA SURF Science Opportunities Workshop were able to deploy imagers and slit-less spectrometers to study a very rare outburst of meteors from long-period comet C/1911 N1 (Kiess) for impact hazard mitigation and to study if some of the meteoroids could be debris from a pristine comet crust.The Aurigid MAC mission was dedicated to observing the Aurigid shower from altitude, where the Moon is mostly out of the picture, and where the low extinction near the horizon creates a large surface area for counting meteors and for measuring spectra for meteoroid composition. More information.
This mission was the first research flight under the new agreement between NASA and H211, LLC, a California limited liability company, to use the NASA Ames Moffett Federal Airfield on a non-exclusive basis. The agreement also allows NASA to place instruments on aircraft to regularly collect Earth atmospheric and terrestrial observations in support of science research and analysis. This work can lay the foundation for experiments to be flown in the future on a SOFIA Upper Deck Research Facility.
2007 June - Walter Miller and Kaiser Adeni of NASA Ames Research Center presented a 4-page technical paper "Sofia As A Dual-Use Airborne Platform For Infrared Astronomy And Earth Science Missions" at the 32nd International Symposium on Remote Sensing of the Environment (San Jose, Costa Rica, June 25-29, 2007).
2004 September - Immediately after the 2004 SOFIA SURF Science Opportunities Workshop, NASA gave participating researchers an opportunity to study the reentry of the Genesis Sample Return Capsule from an airborne platform. This provided new opportunities for development of instruments suited for deployment on SURF. The mission was executed as planned.
2006 January - The effort was repeated during the January 15, 2006, return of Stardust, providing a spectacular video of the artificial meteor. Numerous radiation signatures were measured along the entry trajectory. More information.
2004 March - Tim Castellano of NASA Ames Research Center reports in the March 2004 issue of Sky & Telescope that a recent partnership agreement between Transitsearch and NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) Education and Public Outreach program will allow Transitsearch volunteer observers to compete for the opportunity to fly as outreach partners on SOFIA's modified Boeing 747 jet in 2005 and beyond. Transitsearch is a collaboration of amateur astronomers and was founded by Greg Laughlin and Tim Castellano to find transiting exoplanets.
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