Source: https://simpleflying.com/nasa-end-sofia-boeing-747-project/ NASA and its partners at the German Space Agency at the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) have decided to conclude the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) mission. After eight years of science, SOFIA, a Boeing 747SP airplane modified to carry a reflecting telescope, will be grounded. . . . I worked the network package to connect SOFIA from a nearby commercial airport. They decided Dryden could not host the project with the non-USA engineers and scientist. So the plane and project moved. My task was to make it a 'tail site' to NASA. I enjoyed working with professionals. Bob Wilson
Always sad when you see something you worked your butt off on retiring or worse failing. 15 years later I think only one thing I worked on is still alive.
I tell folks that NASA has one of every device made, usually single digit serial numbers, which were stored in the excess equipment warehouses. Sometimes, I and others would find spares and replacements in them. In one respect, the SLS is that philosophy taken to an extreme (a potentially dangerous extreme.) Bob Wilson
SOFIA was to a large degree a German project. Hard to imagine the tech necessary to maintain pointing accuracy from a platform sledding in the atmosphere eh? They seem not to have throughput enough data to satisfy The Budget Offices. A good resource though, and the hardware software and wetware behind it will enter a mode whence restarting is difficult, even if a reason to do so appears. Unwilling to speculate if the new infrared whizbang space telescope made this appear redundant to some.
At the time, it was a good approach that technology has made obsolete. The biggest advantage was making mobile infrared detectors ... and the pointing challenge. One big advantage was being able to go to places where there were not land based, observatories. But with Webb and the remaining Hubble capabilities, we're beyond SOFIA. Now that SpaceX is doing manned and unmanned missions with reusable first stages, we're considerably advanced. There are also a growing list of small-sat launchers that are less bad than the ones we had before. Just reusable launch vehicles are the way to go. Bob Wilson
