SOFIA design history

Hans J. Kärcher; Edwin F. Erickson; Alfred Krabbe; Jörg Wagner

doi:10.1117/12.2232715

27 July 2016 SOFIA design history

Hans J. Kärcher, Edwin F. Erickson, Alfred Krabbe, Jörg Wagner

Proceedings Volume 9906, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VI; 99061V (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232715
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract

SOFIA has reached in the last two years its full operational capabilities and is producing now great science on typically three observing flights per week. The telescope is the backbone of the observatory and is working nearly perfectly. This may be the right time to have a look on the design history of the telescope and some of the major subsystems, which ensure the functionality under the harsh aero-acoustic environment inside the aircraft cavity. A comparison with SOFIA’s predecessor KAO gives insight in to the challenges of airborne telescope design. The paper describes the development of the optical subsystem, the telescopes structure, the telescope mount and the interface to the aircraft from the conceptual design up to the finally as-built telescope, and comments on their influence on the overall observatory performance.

Citation Download Citation

Hans J. Kärcher, Edwin F. Erickson, Alfred Krabbe, and Jörg Wagner "SOFIA design history", Proc. SPIE 9906, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VI, 99061V (27 July 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232715

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