NASA’s Sofia Flying Observatory to Retire This Week After 8 Years

After eight fruitful years of research, NASA will wrap up the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) program on September 30, 2022. The airborne observatory completed a three-year mission extension in 2014 and has full operating capacity.

Astrobites said a Boeing 747SP aircraft were converted to transport the SOFIA spacecraft, a cooperative venture between NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR. DevDiscourse said SOFIA carried a 2.7-meter (106-inch) reflecting telescope. Building 703 of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, is responsible for the aircraft's upkeep and operation.

The observatory's equipment consists of cameras, spectrometers, and polarimeters and collects data to study the Moon, planets, stars, star-forming regions, and neighboring galaxies in the near-, mid-, and far-infrared.

Since starting its regular operations in 2014, SOFIA has been traveling the world's night sky and observing the cosmos. The three-year mission extension for the observatory ends with the campaign. According to the most recent astrophysics decadal survey from Space.com, a report in which experts assess their research goals for the next ten years, it will soon be deactivated.

Why NASA SOFIA Mission Ends

Experts suggested that SOFIA cease operations in November 2021 based on a decadal astrophysics survey, a community-informed document that identifies the top research goals for astrophysics in the following ten years.

This advice had to be followed by DLR and NASA.

According to the National Academies Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020 review, SOFIA costs around $85 million annually. However, the mission's scientific yield is not commensurate with its enormous operational expenditures.

According to the assessment, SOFIA's capabilities may not align with the Decadal Survey's science goals for the upcoming decade.

NASA Highlights Its Alternative Jet Fuel Research Projects At Edwards Air Force Base — PALMDALE, CA - MAY 20: SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), the largest airborne observatory in the world which makes astronomic observations not possible by even the largest and highest of ground-based telescopes, is seen in the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center hangar on May 20, 2014 in Palmdale, California. NASA provided a behind-the-scenes tour of the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center's hangar in Palmdale, California, and the center's main campus at Edwards Air Force Base to news media representatives. David McNew/Getty Images

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To urge NASA and DLR to complete the SOFIA program after its mission extension, the Decadal Survey had to do it.

"SOFIA's annual operations budget is the second-most expensive operating mission in Astrophysics, yet the science productivity of the mission is not commensurate with other large science missions," officials wrote in a description of NASA's allocations in the 2023 federal budget request.

However, NASA pointed out that even when the mission is over, the data from SOFIA will always be usable. They will attempt to "advance the future of scientific discovery in infrared astrophysics" using James Webb Space Telescope.

SOFIA's Accomplishment

During its mission, SOFIA produced several fascinating findings, one of which was the presence of water in 2020 on the Moon's illuminated surface. In the southern hemisphere of the Moon's Clavius Crater, one of the biggest craters seen from Earth, the observatory found water molecules (H2O).

Also performing science locally was SOFIA. Some of the least known components of the Earth's atmosphere include the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. SOFIA's German Receiver observed these areas of the upper atmosphere for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies (GREAT) instrument in 2021. The discovery has helped scientists understand how solar energy moves between space and the Earth's surface.