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122-710: The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy ( SOFIA ) was an 80/20 joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to construct and maintain an airborne observatory . NASA awarded the contract for the development of the aircraft, operation of the observatory and management of the American part of the project to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in 1996. The DSI (German SOFIA Institute; German : Deutsches SOFIA Institut ) managed

244-410: A thermometer for measuring this energy, and a thermal link to base temperature to dissipate the absorbed energy and cool the detector. The simplest absorption scheme can be applied to TESs operating in the near-IR, optical, and UV regimes. These devices generally utilize a tungsten TES as its own absorber, which absorbs up to 20% of the incident radiation. If high-efficiency detection is desired,

366-426: A 2.5 m (8.2 ft) reflector telescope , which has an oversized, 2.7 m (8.9 ft) diameter primary mirror, as was common with most large infrared telescopes. The optical system uses a Cassegrain reflector design with a parabolic primary mirror and a remotely configurable hyperbolic secondary. In order to fit the telescope into the fuselage, the primary was shaped to an f-number as low as 1.3, while

488-488: A 2.5 m (8.2 ft) diameter reflecting telescope access to the sky. This telescope was designed for infrared astronomy observations in the stratosphere at altitudes of about 12 kilometres (41,000 ft). SOFIA's flight capability allowed it to rise above almost all of the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere, which blocks some infrared wavelengths from reaching the ground. At the aircraft's cruising altitude, 85% of

610-433: A TES optimized for use in the visible regime.) TES single-photon detectors suffer nonetheless from a few disadvantages as compared to their avalanche photodiode (APD) counterparts. APDs are manufactured in small modules, which count photons out-of-the-box with a dead time of a few nanoseconds and output a pulse corresponding to each photon with a jitter of tens of picoseconds. In contrast, TES detectors must be operated in

732-535: A cryogenic environment, output a signal that must be further analyzed to identify photons, and have a jitter of approximately 100 ns. Furthermore, a single-photon spike on a TES detector lasts on the order of microseconds. TES arrays are becoming increasingly common in physics and astronomy experiments such as SCUBA-2 , the HAWC+ instrument on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy ,

854-628: A decade of reliance on the Russians. In 2019, NASA announced the Artemis program , intending to return to the Moon and establish a permanent human presence. This was paired with the Artemis Accords with partner nations to establish rules of behavior and norms of space commercialization on the Moon. In 2023, NASA established the Moon to Mars Program office. The office is designed to oversee

976-681: A drop in TES current; the Joule power in turn drops, cooling the device back to its equilibrium state in the self-biased region. In a common SQUID readout system, the TES is operated in series with the input coil L , which is inductively coupled to a SQUID series-array. Thus a change in TES current manifests as a change in the input flux to the SQUID, whose output is further amplified and read by room-temperature electronics. Any bolometric sensor employs three basic components: an absorber of incident energy,

1098-542: A low- impedance system. Joule heating in a current-biased TES can lead to thermal runaway that drives the detector into the normal (non-superconducting) state, a phenomenon known as positive electrothermal feedback . The thermal runaway problem was solved in 1995 by K. D. Irwin by voltage-biasing the TES, establishing stable negative electrothermal feedback , and coupling them to superconducting quantum interference devices ( SQUID ) current amplifiers. This breakthrough has led to widespread adoption of TES detectors. The TES

1220-647: A month after the Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, executing a full orbital spaceflight. NASA's first orbital spaceflight was conducted by John Glenn on February 20, 1962, in the Friendship 7 , making three full orbits before reentering. Glenn had to fly parts of his final two orbits manually due to an autopilot malfunction. The sixth and final Mercury mission was flown by Gordon Cooper in May 1963, performing 22 orbits over 34 hours in

1342-442: A narrow transition. Important TES properties including not only heat capacity but also thermal conductance are strongly temperature dependent, so the choice of transition temperature T c is critical to the device design. Furthermore, T c should be chosen to accommodate the available cryogenic system . Tungsten has been a popular choice for elemental TESs as thin-film tungsten displays two phases, one with T c ~15 mK and

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1464-421: A near-infrared camera covering 1–5 μm; FORCAST, covering the mid-infrared range of 5–40 μm; and HAWC, which spans the far-infrared in the range 42–210 μm. The other four instruments include an optical photometer and infrared spectrometers with various spectral ranges. During its time in service, SOFIA's telescope was by far the largest placed in an aircraft. For each mission one interchangeable science instrument

1586-454: A new livery without Lindbergh's name. The aircraft remained in service until December 1995, when United Airlines placed it into storage near Las Vegas. On April 30, 1997, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) purchased the aircraft from United for use as an airborne observatory. On October 27, 1997, NASA purchased the aircraft from USRA. NASA conducted a series of "baseline" flight tests that year, prior to any heavy modification of

1708-583: A permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. In 1985, NASA proposed the Space Station Freedom , which both the agency and President Reagan intended to be an international program. While this would add legitimacy to the program, there were concerns within NASA that the international component would dilute its authority within the project, having never been willing to work with domestic or international partners as true equals. There

1830-650: A possible source of antimatter at the center of the Milky Way and observing that the majority of gamma-ray bursts occur outside of the Milky Way galaxy. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched from the Columbia on STS-93 in 1999, observing black holes, quasars , supernova , and dark matter . It provided critical observations on the Sagittarius A* black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and

1952-540: A space station since the agency was created. In 1973, following the end of the Apollo lunar missions, NASA launched its first space station, Skylab , on the final launch of the Saturn   V. Skylab reused a significant amount of Apollo and Saturn hardware, with a repurposed Saturn   V third stage serving as the primary module for the space station. Damage to Skylab during its launch required spacewalks to be performed by

2074-405: A thermometer in the following manner: absorbed incident energy increases the resistance of the voltage-biased sensor within its transition region, and the integral of the resulting drop in current is proportional to the energy absorbed by the detector. The output signal is proportional to the temperature change of the absorber, and thus for maximal sensitivity, a TES should have low heat capacity and

2196-415: A transition-edge calorimeter made of niobium nitride which was used to measure alpha particles . However, the TES detector did not gain popularity for about 50 years, due primarily to the difficulty in stabilizing the temperature within the narrow superconducting transition region, especially when more than one pixel was operated at the same time, and also due to the difficulty of signal readout from such

2318-558: A variety of backgrounds, and their institutions included a school for the deaf, an alternative education site (developmentally challenged), highly underserved student populations, rural schools, and a Native American school. Since the "Pilot" cycle the AAA program has flown over 20 teams and was now in its Cycle 5 phase. Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols flew aboard SOFIA on September 17, 2015. NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / )

2440-562: Is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program , aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958 , it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science . It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury , Project Gemini ,

2562-453: Is desirable; a bismuth film is often employed. Any absorber should have low heat capacity with respect to the TES. Higher heat capacity in the absorber will contribute to noise and decrease the sensitivity of the detector (since a given absorbed energy will not produce as large of a change in TES resistance). For far-IR radiation into the millimeter range, the absorption schemes commonly employ antennas or feedhorns . The TES operates as

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2684-460: Is seen by the TES rather than being lost directly to the bath. However, the thermal link must not be too weak, as it is necessary to cool the TES back to bath temperature after the energy has been absorbed. Two approaches to control the thermal link are by electron–phonon coupling and by mechanical machining. At cryogenic temperatures, the electron and phonon systems in a material can become only weakly coupled. The electron–phonon thermal conductance

2806-518: Is strongly temperature-dependent, and hence the thermal conductance can be tuned by adjusting T c . Other devices use mechanical means of controlling the thermal conductance such as building the TES on a sub-micrometre membrane over a hole in the substrate or in the middle of a sparse "spiderweb" structure. TES detectors are attractive to the scientific community for a variety of reasons. Among their most striking attributes are an unprecedented high detection efficiency customizable to wavelengths from

2928-405: Is voltage-biased by driving a current source I bias through a load resistor R L (see figure). The voltage is chosen to put the TES in its so-called "self-biased region" where the power dissipated in the device is constant with the applied voltage. When a photon is absorbed by the TES, this extra power is removed by negative electrothermal feedback : the TES resistance increases, causing

3050-590: The Faith 7 . The Mercury Program was wildly recognized as a resounding success, achieving its objectives to orbit a human in space, develop tracking and control systems, and identify other issues associated with human spaceflight. While much of NASA's attention turned to space, it did not put aside its aeronautics mission. Early aeronautics research attempted to build upon the X-1's supersonic flight to build an aircraft capable of hypersonic flight . The North American X-15

3172-756: The Army Ballistic Missile Agency would launch Explorer 1 , America's first satellite, on February 1, 1958. The Eisenhower Administration decided to split the United States' military and civil spaceflight programs, which were organized together under the Defense Department 's Advanced Research Projects Agency . NASA was established on July 29, 1958, with the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act and it began operations on October 1, 1958. As

3294-1122: The Atacama Cosmology Telescope , the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search , the Cryogenic Observatory for Signatures Seen in Next-Generation Underground Searches , the Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers , the E and B Experiment , the South Pole Telescope , the Spider polarimeter , the X-IFU instrument of the Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics satellite, the future LiteBIRD Cosmic Microwave Background polarization experiment,

3416-803: The Bell X-1 in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force . NACA's interest in space grew out of its rocketry program at the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age and kicked off the Space Race . Despite NACA's early rocketry program, the responsibility for launching the first American satellite fell to the Naval Research Laboratory 's Project Vanguard , whose operational issues ensured

3538-677: The Big Bang . The James Webb Space Telescope , named after the NASA administrator who lead the Apollo program, is an infrared observatory launched in 2021. The James Webb Space Telescope is a direct successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, intended to observe the formation of the first galaxies. Other space telescopes include the Kepler space telescope , launched in 2009 to identify planets orbiting extrasolar stars that may be Terran and possibly harbor life. The first exoplanet that

3660-698: The Earth Observing System ; advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate 's Heliophysics Research Program; exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance ; and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang , through the James Webb Space Telescope ,

3782-797: The Environmental Science Services Administration on a series of weather satellites and the agency launched its experimental Applications Technology Satellites into geosynchronous orbit. NASA's first dedicated Earth observation satellite, Landsat , was launched in 1972. This led to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jointly developing the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite and discovering Ozone depletion . NASA had been pursuing spaceplane development since

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3904-691: The Europa and observed that the moon may hold ice or liquid water. A joint NASA- European Space Agency - Italian Space Agency mission, Cassini–Huygens , was sent to Saturn 's moon Titan , which, along with Mars and Europa, are the only celestial bodies in the Solar System suspected of being capable of harboring life. Cassini discovered three new moons of Saturn and the Huygens probe entered Titan's atmosphere. The mission discovered evidence of liquid hydrocarbon lakes on Titan and subsurface water oceans on

4026-784: The Johnson Space Center as the lead center for the design, development, and manufacturing of the Space Shuttle orbiter , while the Marshall Space Flight Center would lead the development of the launch system. NASA's series of lifting body aircraft, culminating in the joint NASA-U.S. Air Force Martin Marietta X-24 , directly informed the development of the Space Shuttle and future hypersonic flight aircraft. Official development of

4148-664: The Mars Global Surveyor orbiter and Mars Pathfinder , deploying the first Mars rover, Sojourner . During the early 2000s, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter reached the planet and in 2004 the Sprit and Opportunity rovers landed on the Red Planet. This was followed in 2005 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2007 Phoenix Mars lander. The 2012 landing of Curiosity discovered that

4270-614: The Orbiting Geophysical Observatory in the 1960s and 1970s to look down at Earth and observe its interactions with the Sun. The Uhuru satellite was the first dedicated x-ray telescope, mapping 85% of the sky and discovering a large number of black holes . Launched in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Great Observatories program are among NASA's most powerful telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope

4392-658: The STS-1 mission, designed to serve as a flight test for the new spaceplane. NASA intended for the Space Shuttle to replace expendable launch systems like the Air Force's Atlas , Delta , and Titan and the European Space Agency 's Ariane . The Space Shuttle's Spacelab payload, developed by the European Space Agency, increased the scientific capabilities of shuttle missions over anything NASA

4514-635: The STS-60 mission in 1994 and the Discovery rendezvoused, but did not dock with, the Russian Mir in the STS-63 mission. This was followed by Atlantis' STS-71 mission where it accomplished the initial intended mission for the Space Shuttle, docking with a space station and transferring supplies and personnel. The Shuttle- Mir program would continue until 1998, when a series of orbital accidents on

4636-477: The Space Race when the Soviet Union gave up its lunar ambitions. As the first human to step on the surface of the Moon, Neil Armstrong uttered the now famous words: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. NASA would conduct six total lunar landings as part of the Apollo program, with Apollo   17 concluding the program in 1972. Wernher von Braun had advocated for NASA to develop

4758-620: The Space Shuttle began in 1972, with Rockwell International contracted to design the orbiter and engines, Martin Marietta for the external fuel tank , and Morton Thiokol for the solid rocket boosters . NASA acquired six orbiters: the Enterprise , Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , Atlantis , and Endeavour The Space Shuttle program also allowed NASA to make major changes to its Astronaut Corps . While almost all previous astronauts were Air Force or Naval test pilots,

4880-620: The United States Congress created the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914 and established NACA in 1915 to foster aeronautical research and development. Over the next forty years, NACA would conduct aeronautical research in support of the U.S. Air Force , U.S. Army , U.S. Navy , and the civil aviation sector. After the end of World War II , NACA became interested in the possibilities of guided missiles and supersonic aircraft, developing and testing

5002-405: The inner planets . Despite these successes, Congress was unwilling to fund further interplanetary missions and NASA Administrator James Webb suspended all future interplanetary probes to focus resources on the Apollo program. Following the conclusion of the Apollo program, NASA resumed launching interplanetary probes and expanded its space science program. The first planet tagged for exploration

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5124-472: The 1960s, blending the administration's dual aeronautics and space missions. NASA viewed a spaceplane as part of a larger program, providing routine and economical logistical support to a space station in Earth orbit that would be used as a hub for lunar and Mars missions. A reusable launch vehicle would then have ended the need for expensive and expendable boosters like the Saturn V . In 1969, NASA designated

5246-728: The 1968–1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle . Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program , and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the lunar Artemis program . NASA's science division is focused on better understanding Earth through

5368-679: The 44 commercial companies that contracted with NASA to deploy their satellites to return to expendable launch vehicles. When the Space Shuttle returned to flight with the STS-26 mission, it had undergone significant modifications to improve its reliability and safety. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and United States initiated the Shuttle- Mir program . The first Russian cosmonaut flew on

5490-474: The 921st and last flight in the early morning of September 29, 2022. The Boeing 747SP used to carry the telescope has been preserved and put on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum near Tucson, Arizona . SOFIA was based on a Boeing 747SP , a factory shortened version of the wide-body aircraft that had been modified to include a large door in the aft fuselage that could be opened in flight to allow

5612-630: The Air Force as the military space lead. Plans for human spaceflight began in the U.S. Armed Forces prior to NASA's creation. The Air Force's Man in Space Soonest project formed in 1956, coupled with the Army's Project Adam, served as the foundation for Project Mercury . NASA established the Space Task Group to manage the program, which would conduct crewed sub-orbital flights with the Army's Redstone rockets and orbital flights with

5734-501: The Air Force's Atlas launch vehicles. While NASA intended for its first astronauts to be civilians, President Eisenhower directed that they be selected from the military. The Mercury 7 astronauts included three Air Force pilots, three Navy aviators, and one Marine Corps pilot. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space, performing a suborbital spaceflight in the Freedom 7 . This flight occurred less than

5856-579: The Ames Learjet Observatory for observations of Jupiter and nebulae. In 1969, planning began for mounting a 910 mm (36 in) telescope on an airborne platform. The goal was to perform astronomy from the stratosphere , where there was a much lower optical depth from water-vapor-absorbed infrared radiation. This project, named the Kuiper Airborne Observatory , was dedicated on May 21, 1975. The telescope

5978-410: The Apollo program. Despite attacks on the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon from the former president Dwight Eisenhower and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater , President Kennedy was able to protect NASA's growing budget, of which 50% went directly to human spaceflight and it was later estimated that, at its height, 5% of Americans worked on some aspect of the Apollo program. Mirroring

6100-478: The Army Ballistic Missile Agency's original Saturn   I . The Apollo spacecraft was designed and built by North American Aviation , while the Apollo Lunar Module was designed and built by Grumman . To develop the spaceflight skills and equipment required for a lunar mission, NASA initiated Project Gemini . Using a modified Air Force Titan   II launch vehicle, the Gemini capsule could hold two astronauts for flights of over two weeks. Gemini pioneered

6222-426: The Department of Defense's program management concept using redundant systems in building the first intercontinental ballistic missiles, NASA requested the Air Force assign Major General Samuel C. Phillips to the space agency where he would serve as the director of the Apollo program. Development of the Saturn   V rocket was led by Wernher von Braun and his team at the Marshall Space Flight Center , derived from

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6344-399: The German parts of the project which were primarily science-and telescope-related. SOFIA's telescope saw first light on May 26, 2010. SOFIA was the successor to the Kuiper Airborne Observatory . During 10-hour, overnight flights, it observed celestial magnetic fields, star-forming regions, comets, nebulae , and the Galactic Center . Science flights have now concluded, after the landing of

6466-439: The Keplar space telescope confirmed was Kepler-22b , orbiting within the habitable zone of its star. NASA also launched a number of different satellites to study Earth, such as Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) in 1960, which was the first weather satellite. NASA and the United States Weather Bureau cooperated on future TIROS and the second generation Nimbus program of weather satellites. It also worked with

6588-439: The L-3 Integrated Systems' (L-3 IS) Waco, Texas facility. After a brief test program in Waco to partially expand the flight envelope and perform post-maintenance checks, the aircraft was moved on May 31, 2007, to NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base . The first phase of loads and flight testing was used to check the aircraft characteristics with the external telescope cavity door closed. This phase

6710-448: The Martian interior. The 2021 Perseverance rover carried the first extraplanetary aircraft, a helicopter named Ingenuity . NASA also launched missions to Mercury in 2004, with the MESSENGER probe demonstrating as the first use of a solar sail . NASA also launched probes to the outer Solar System starting in the 1960s. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to the outer planets, flying by Jupiter , while Pioneer 11 provided

6832-402: The Moon and going to Mars. Embracing this approach, NASA's Commercial Crew Program started by contracting cargo delivery to the International Space Station and flew its first operational contracted mission on SpaceX Crew-1 . This marked the first time since the retirement of the Space Shuttle that NASA was able to launch its own astronauts on an American spacecraft from the United States, ending

6954-404: The Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s and installed James E. Webb as NASA administrator to achieve this goal. On May   25, 1961, President Kennedy openly declared this goal in his "Urgent National Needs" speech to the United States Congress, declaring: I believe this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on

7076-427: The Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. Kennedy gave his " We choose to go to the Moon " speech the next year, on September   12, 1962 at Rice University , where he addressed the nation hoping to reinforce public support for

7198-423: The NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, was home to the SOFIA Science Center which managed mission planning for the program. On June 29, 2015, the dwarf planet Pluto passed between a distant star and the Earth producing a shadow on the Earth near New Zealand that allowed SOFIA to study the atmosphere of Pluto . In early 2016, SOFIA detected atomic oxygen in the Atmosphere of Mars for

7320-409: The Russians be included. In 1993, the Clinton Administration announced that the Space Station Freedom would become the International Space Station in an agreement with the Russian Federation. This allowed the Russians to maintain their space program through an infusion of American currency to maintain their status as one of the two premier space programs. While the United States built and launched

7442-507: The Russians to fly to the International Space Station for four days, despite the opposition of NASA to the idea. Advocates of this new commercial approach for NASA included former astronaut Buzz Aldrin , who remarked that it would return NASA to its roots as a research and development agency, with commercial entities actually operating the space systems. Having corporations take over orbital operations would also allow NASA to focus all its efforts on deep space exploration and returning humans to

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7564-422: The Solar System. Mars has long been a planet of intense fascination for NASA, being suspected of potentially having harbored life. Mariner 5 was the first NASA spacecraft to flyby Mars, followed by Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 . Mariner 9 was the first orbital mission to Mars. Launched in 1975, Viking program consisted of two landings on Mars in 1976. Follow-on missions would not be launched until 1996, with

7686-404: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA was forced to rely on Russian Soyuz launches for its astronauts and the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle accelerated the station's completion. In the 1980s, right after the first flight of the Space Shuttle, NASA started a joint program with the Department of Defense to develop the Rockwell X-30 National Aerospace Plane. NASA realized that

7808-418: The Space Shuttle allowed NASA to begin recruiting more non-military scientific and technical experts. A prime example is Sally Ride , who became the first American woman to fly in space on STS-7 . This new astronaut selection process also allowed NASA to accept exchange astronauts from U.S. allies and partners for the first time. The first Space Shuttle flight occurred in 1981, when the Columbia launched on

7930-443: The Space Shuttle and expand space exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Constellation was intended to use a significant amount of former Space Shuttle equipment and return astronauts to the Moon. This program was canceled by the Obama Administration . Former astronauts Neil Armstrong , Gene Cernan , and Jim Lovell sent a letter to President Barack Obama to warn him that if the United States did not get new human spaceflight ability,

8052-478: The Space Shuttle began flying, selling it as an orbital laboratory, repair station, and a jumping off point for lunar and Mars missions. NASA found a strong advocate in President Ronald Reagan , who declared in a 1984 speech: America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight I am directing NASA to develop

8174-444: The Space Shuttle, while a massive technological accomplishment, would not be able to live up to all its promises. Designed to be a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane, the X-30 had both civil and military applications. With the end of the Cold War , the X-30 was canceled in 1992 before reaching flight status. Following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, President Bush started the Constellation program to smoothly replace

8296-483: The Space Shuttle. Due to technical challenges, the spacecraft was cancelled in 2001. Despite this, it was the first time a commercial space company directly expended a significant amount of its resources into spacecraft development. The advent of space tourism also forced NASA to challenge its assumption that only governments would have people in space. The first space tourist was Dennis Tito , an American investment manager and former aerospace engineer who contracted with

8418-507: The Space Station Freedom was controversial, with much of the debate centering on cost. Several redesigns to reduce cost were conducted in the early 1990s, stripping away much of its functions. Despite calls for Congress to terminate the program, it continued, in large part because by 1992 it had created 75,000 jobs across 39 states. By 1993, President Bill Clinton attempted to significantly reduce NASA's budget and directed costs be significantly reduced, aerospace industry jobs were not lost, and

8540-486: The TES may be fabricated in a multi-layer optical cavity tuned to the desired operating wavelength and employing a backside mirror and frontside anti-reflection coating. Such techniques can decrease the transmission and reflection from the detectors to negligibly low values; 95% detection efficiency has been observed. At higher energies, the primary obstacle to absorption is transmission, not reflection, and thus an absorber with high photon stopping power and low heat capacity

8662-399: The U.S. risked become a second or third-rate space power. As early as the Reagan Administration, there had been calls for NASA to expand private sector involvement in space exploration rather than do it all in-house. In the 1990s, NASA and Lockheed Martin entered into an agreement to develop the Lockheed Martin X-33 demonstrator of the VentureStar spaceplane, which was intended to replace

8784-536: The US's premier aeronautics agency, NACA formed the core of NASA's new structure by reassigning 8,000 employees and three major research laboratories. NASA also proceeded to absorb the Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency under Wernher von Braun . This left NASA firmly as the United States' civil space lead and

8906-402: The aft left side of the aircraft's fuselage that could be opened in-flight to give the telescope access to the sky. The telescope was mounted in the aft end of the fuselage behind a pressurized bulkhead. The telescope's focal point is located at a science instruments suite in the pressurized, center section of the fuselage, requiring part of the telescope to pass through the pressure bulkhead. In

9028-475: The aircraft by E-Systems (later Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems then L-3 Communications Integrated Systems of Waco, Texas ). To ensure successful modification, Raytheon purchased a section from another 747SP, registration number N141UA, which was being scrapped in early 1998 to use as a full-size mock-up . Commencing work in 1998, Raytheon designed and installed a 5.5 m (18 ft) tall (arc length) by 4.1 m (13.5 ft) wide door in

9150-437: The aircraft in honor of aviator Charles Lindbergh . At the invitation of Pan Am, Lindbergh's widow, Anne , christened the aircraft Clipper Lindbergh on May 20, 1977, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of her husband's historic flight from New York to Paris in 1927. United Airlines purchased the plane from Pan Am on February 13, 1986, and the aircraft received a new aircraft registration, N145UA. The aircraft also received

9272-452: The aircraft occurred on December 13, 2022, when the aircraft departed from Palmdale and landed at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base , to be donated to the Pima Air & Space Museum located near Tucson, Arizona , where it has been placed on display. The first use of an aircraft for performing infrared observations was in 1965 when Gerard P. Kuiper used NASA's Galileo Airborne Observatory to study Venus. Three years later, Frank J. Low used

9394-413: The center of the aircraft was the mission control and science operations section, while the forward section hosts the education and public outreach area. The open fuselage has no significant influence on the aerodynamics and flight qualities of the airplane. At NASA's invitation, Lindbergh's grandson, Erik Lindbergh, re-christened the aircraft as Clipper Lindbergh , on May 21, 2007, the 80th anniversary of

9516-589: The completion of Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight. During December 2012 the aircraft received a glass cockpit flight-deck upgrade along with new avionics systems and software updates. On April 28, 2022, the project announced it was retiring the aircraft as of September 30, 2022. Its 921st and last mission was over the North Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, taking off from Palmdale and returning there to land 7 hours and 57 minutes later at 04:41 PDT (11:41 UTC ). The final flight of

9638-484: The consortium established its own coating facility at Moffett Field . The SOFIA aircraft was a modified Boeing 747SP . Boeing developed the SP or "Special Performance" version of the 747 for ultra long range flights, modifying the design of the 747-100 by removing sections of the fuselage and heavily modifying others to reduce weight, thus allowing the 747SP to fly higher, faster and farther non-stop than any other 747 model of

9760-420: The first close up view of the planet. Both probes became the first objects to leave the Solar System. The Voyager program launched in 1977, conducting flybys of Jupiter and Saturn , Neptune , and Uranus on a trajectory to leave the Solar System. The Galileo spacecraft, deployed from the Space Shuttle flight STS-34 , was the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, discovering evidence of subsurface oceans on

9882-515: The first crew to make it habitable and operational. Skylab hosted nine missions and was decommissioned in 1974 and deorbited in 1979, two years prior to the first launch of the Space Shuttle and any possibility of boosting its orbit. In 1975, the Apollo–Soyuz mission was the first ever international spaceflight and a major diplomatic accomplishment between the Cold War rivals, which also marked

10004-402: The first humans to see the Earth as a globe in space, the first to witness an Earthrise , and the first to see and manually photograph the far side of the Moon. The first lunar landing was conducted by Apollo   11. Commanded by Neil Armstrong with astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins , Apollo   11 was one of the most significant missions in NASA's history, marking the end of

10126-508: The first time in 40 years. In early 2017, its observations of 1 Ceres in the mid-infrared helped determine the large asteroid/dwarf planet was coated with a layer of asteroid dust from other bodies. In July 2017, SOFIA observed a star occultation of the distant Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth while ground based observatories failed this observation, preparing the probe New Horizons visiting this asteroid. Sofia has been used also for Astrobiology missions, focusing amongst other goals on

10248-414: The four Great Observatories , and associated programs. The Launch Services Program oversees launch operations for its uncrewed launches . NASA traces its roots to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Despite being the birthplace of aviation, by 1914 the United States recognized that it was far behind Europe in aviation capability. Determined to regain American leadership in aviation,

10370-679: The full infrared range was available. The aircraft could also travel above almost any point on the Earth's surface, allowing observation from the northern and southern hemispheres. Observing flights were flown three or four nights a week. The SOFIA Observatory was based at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center at Palmdale Regional Airport , California, while the SOFIA Science Center was based in Ames Research Center , in Mountain View, California. SOFIA uses

10492-433: The ground. In February 2006, after cost increases from $ 185 million to $ 330 million, NASA placed the project "under review" and suspended funding by removing the project from its budget. On June 15, 2006, SOFIA passed the review when NASA concluded that there were no insurmountable technical or programmatic challenges to the continued development of SOFIA. The maiden flight of SOFIA took place on April 26, 2007, at

10614-451: The last flight of the Apollo capsule. Flown in 1975, a U.S. Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. During the 1960s, NASA started its space science and interplanetary probe program. The Mariner program was its flagship program, launching probes to Venus , Mars , and Mercury in the 1960s. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the lead NASA center for robotic interplanetary exploration, making significant discoveries about

10736-515: The majority of the International Space Station, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the European Space Agency all contributed components. Despite NASA's insistence that costs would be kept at a budget of $ 17.4, they kept rising and NASA had to transfer funds from other programs to keep the International Space Station solvent. Ultimately, the total cost of the station was $ 150 billion, with the United States paying for two-thirds.Following

10858-440: The millimeter regime to gamma rays and a theoretical negligible background dark count level (less than 1 event in 1000 s from intrinsic thermal fluctuations of the device ). (In practice, although only a real energy signal will create a current pulse, a nonzero background level may be registered by the counting algorithm or the presence of background light in the experimental setup. Even thermal blackbody radiation may be seen by

10980-634: The moon of Enceladus , which could harbor life. Finally launched in 2006, the New Horizons mission was the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt . Beyond interplanetary probes, NASA has launched many space telescopes . Launched in the 1960s, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory were NASA's first orbital telescopes, providing ultraviolet, gamma-ray, x-ray, and infrared observations. NASA launched

11102-589: The observation of new planetary systems and the detection of complex molecules. In October 2020, astronomers reported detecting molecular water on the sunlit surface of the Moon by several independent spacecraft, including the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). Between January and May of 2022, using the FORCAST instrument aboard SOFIA, the detection of water on asteroids

11224-573: The observatory was slated for full capability by 2014 with about 100 flights per year. Since 2011, SOFIA missions were chosen amongst several proposals. Successful missions were scheduled according to yearly cycles, with the first cycle corresponding to 2013. During each cycle, the aircraft and instruments were shared between a few different missions. The astrophysics decadal survey for the 2020s recommended that NASA end SOFIA operations by 2023. "The survey committee has significant concerns about SOFIA, given its high cost and modest scientific productivity,"

11346-433: The other with T c ~1–4 K, which can be combined to finely tune the overall device T c . Bilayer and multilayer TESs are another popular fabrication approach, where thin films of different materials are combined to achieve the desired T c . Finally, it is necessary to tune the thermal coupling between the TES and the bath of cooling liquid; a low thermal conductance is necessary to ensure that incident energy

11468-625: The radiation levels on Mars were equal to those on the International Space Station , greatly increasing the possibility of Human exploration, and observed the key chemical ingredients for life to occur. In 2013, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution ( MAVEN ) mission observed the Martian upper atmosphere and space environment and in 2018, the Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy, and Heat Transport ( InSight ) studied

11590-608: The report stated. The primary science objectives of SOFIA were to study the composition of planetary atmospheres and surfaces; to investigate the structure, evolution and composition of comets ; to determine the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium ; and to explore the formation of stars and other stellar objects. While SOFIA aircraft operations were managed by the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California,

11712-657: The resulting optical layout has an f-number of 19.7. A flat, tertiary, dichroic mirror was used to deflect the infrared part of the beam to the Nasmyth focus where it can be analyzed. An optical mirror located behind the tertiary mirror was used for a camera guidance system. The telescope looked out of a large door in the port side of the fuselage near the airplane's tail, and initially carried nine instruments for infrared astronomy at wavelengths from 1–655 micrometres (μm) and high-speed optical astronomy at wavelengths from 0.3 to 1.1 μm. The main instruments were FLITECAM,

11834-507: The satellites were repaired and relaunched. Despite ushering in a new era of spaceflight, where NASA was contracting launch services to commercial companies, the Space Shuttle was criticized for not being as reusable and cost-effective as advertised. In 1986, Challenger disaster on the STS-51L mission resulted in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts on launch, grounding the entire space shuttle fleet for 36 months and forced

11956-556: The scientist, and reach hundreds of thousands of people across the nation through these educators. The "SOFIA Six" were the first set of educators selected in the United States to participate in SOFIA's AAA "Pilot" program, and flew during the summer of 2011. Germany had a separate application process, but also flew two teachers that summer. Educator teams plus alternates were selected in a highly competitive application process. NASA and DLR (German Space Agency) selected educators who came from

12078-676: The separation of dark and regular matter during galactic collisions. Finally, the Spitzer Space Telescope is an infrared telescope launched in 2003 from a Delta II rocket. It is in a trailing orbit around the Sun, following the Earth and discovered the existence of brown dwarf stars . Other telescopes, such as the Cosmic Background Explorer and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe , provided evidence to support

12200-510: The setback caused by the Apollo   1 fire, which killed three astronauts, the program proceeded. Apollo   8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon . The crew orbited the Moon ten times on December   24 and   25, 1968, and then traveled safely back to Earth . The three Apollo   8 astronauts— Frank Borman , James Lovell , and William Anders —were

12322-549: The space shuttle be retired. In 2006, the Space Shuttle returned to flight, conducting several mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope , but was retired following the STS-135 resupply mission to the International Space Station in 2011. NASA never gave up on the idea of a space station after Skylab's reentry in 1979. The agency began lobbying politicians to support building a larger space station as soon as

12444-481: The space station spelled an end to the program. In 2003, a second space shuttle was destroyed when the Columbia was destroyed upon reentry during the STS-107 mission, resulting in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts. This accident marked the beginning of the retiring of the Space Shuttle program, with President George W. Bush directing that upon the completion of the International Space Station,

12566-433: The star Polaris . The project was further delayed in 2001 when three subcontractors tasked with development of the telescope door went out of business in succession. United Airlines also entered bankruptcy protection and withdrew from the project as operator of the aircraft. The telescope was transported from Germany to the United States where it was installed in the airframe in 2004 and initial observations were made from

12688-429: The telescope was exposed to high-speed turbulent winds. In addition, the vibrations and motions of the aircraft introduce observing difficulties. The telescope was designed to be very lightweight, with a honeycomb shape milled into the back of the mirror and polymer composite material used for the telescope assembly. The mount includes a system of bearings in pressurized oil to isolate the instrument from vibration. Tracking

12810-496: The telescope. However, the reunification of Germany and budget cuts at NASA led to a five-year slide in the project. NASA then contracted the work out to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), and in 1996, NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) signed a memorandum of understanding to build and operate SOFIA. The SOFIA telescope's primary mirror was 2.5 meters in diameter and

12932-415: The time. Boeing assigned serial number 21441 to the airframe that would eventually become SOFIA; it was the 306th 747 to be built. The first flight of this aircraft was on April 25, 1977, and Boeing delivered the aircraft to Pan American World Airways on May 6, 1977. The aircraft received its first aircraft registration , N536PA and Pan Am placed the aircraft into commercial passenger service. Pan Am named

13054-579: The use of fuel cells instead of batteries, and conducted the first American spacewalks and rendezvous operations . The Ranger Program was started in the 1950s as a response to Soviet lunar exploration, however most missions ended in failure. The Lunar Orbiter program had greater success, mapping the surface in preparation for Apollo landings and measured Selenography , conducted meteoroid detection, and measured radiation levels. The Surveyor program conducted uncrewed lunar landings and takeoffs, as well as taking surface and regolith observations. Despite

13176-493: The various projects, mission architectures and associated timelines relevant to lunar and Mars exploration and science. Transition edge sensor The first demonstrations of the superconducting transition's measurement potential appeared in the 1940s, 30 years after Onnes 's discovery of superconductivity . D. H. Andrews demonstrated the first transition-edge bolometer , a current-biased tantalum wire which he used to measure an infrared signal. Subsequently he demonstrated

13298-461: Was Venus , sharing many similar characteristics to Earth. First visited by American Mariner 2 spacecraft, Venus was observed to be a hot and inhospitable planet. Follow-on missions included the Pioneer Venus project in the 1970s and Magellan , which performed radar mapping of Venus' surface in the 1980s and 1990s. Future missions were flybys of Venus, on their way to other destinations in

13420-489: Was a joint NASA–U.S. Air Force program, with the hypersonic test aircraft becoming the first non-dedicated spacecraft to cross from the atmosphere to outer space. The X-15 also served as a testbed for Apollo program technologies, as well as ramjet and scramjet propulsion. Escalations in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union prompted President John F. Kennedy to charge NASA with landing an American on

13542-683: Was able to previously accomplish. NASA launched its first commercial satellites on the STS-5 mission and in 1984, the STS-41-C mission conducted the world's first on-orbit satellite servicing mission when the Challenger captured and repaired the malfunctioning Solar Maximum Mission satellite. It also had the capability to return malfunctioning satellite to Earth, like it did with the Palapa B2 and Westar 6 satellites. Once returned to Earth,

13664-406: Was achieved through a system of gyroscopes, high-speed cameras, and magnetic torque motors to compensate for motion, including vibrations from airflow and the aircraft engines. The telescope cabin was cooled prior to aircraft takeoff to ensure that the telescope matched the external temperature it would experience at altitude to prevent thermally induced shape changes. Prior to landing, the compartment

13786-545: Was also a concern with sharing sensitive space technologies with the Europeans, which had the potential to dilute America's technical lead. Ultimately, an international agreement to develop the Space Station Freedom program would be signed with thirteen countries in 1985, including the European Space Agency member states, Canada , and Japan . Despite its status as the first international space program,

13908-452: Was attached to the telescope. Two groups of general-purpose instruments were available. In addition, an investigator can also design and build a special purpose instrument. On April 17, 2012, two upgrades to HAWC were selected by NASA to increase the field of view with new transition edge sensor bolometer detector arrays and to add the capability of measuring the polarization of dust emission from celestial sources. The open cavity housing

14030-639: Was cast by Schott AG in Mainz, Germany with lightweight improvements, with grinding and polishing completed by the French company SAGEM -REOSC. The secondary silicon carbide-based mirror mechanism was manufactured by the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM). A reflective surface coating was reapplied to the primary mirror 1–2 times per year, first at a contract facility in Louisiana, until

14152-471: Was flooded with nitrogen gas to prevent condensation of moisture on the chilled optics and instruments. DLR was responsible for the entire telescope assembly and design, along with two of the nine scientific instruments used with the telescope; NASA was responsible for the aircraft. The manufacturing of the telescope was subcontracted to the European industry. The telescope was German-made; the primary mirror

14274-417: Was instrumental in numerous scientific studies, including the discovery of the ring system around the planet Uranus. The proposal for a larger aircraft-mounted telescope was officially presented in 1984 and called for a Boeing 747 to carry a three-meter telescope. The preliminary system concept was published in 1987 in a Red Book . It was agreed that Germany would contribute 20% of the total cost and provide

14396-497: Was launched in 1990 on STS-31 from the Discovery and could view galaxies 15 billion light years away. A major defect in the telescope's mirror could have crippled the program, had NASA not used computer enhancement to compensate for the imperfection and launched five Space Shuttle servicing flights to replace the damaged components. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched from the Atlantis on STS-37 in 1991, discovering

14518-595: Was made of silicon carbide , with polishing completed by May 2000. During 2002, the main components of the telescope were assembled in Augsburg , Germany. These consisted of the primary mirror assembly, the main optical support and the suspension assembly. After successful integration tests were made to check the system, the components were shipped to Waco, Texas on board an Airbus Beluga aircraft. They arrived on September 4, 2002. SOFIA completed its first ground-based "on-sky" test on August 18–19, 2004 by taking an image of

14640-536: Was manufactured of Zerodur , a glass-ceramic composite produced by Schott AG that has almost zero thermal expansion . REOSC, the optical department of the SAGEM Group in France, reduced the weight by milling honeycomb-shaped pockets out of the back. They finished polishing the mirror on December 14, 1999, achieving an accuracy of 8.5 nanometres (nm) over the optical surface. The hyperbola-shaped secondary mirror

14762-481: Was performed for the first time. The discovery was described in a paper published in February 2024. SOFIA was designed from the beginning to support a robust public education and outreach effort that can, during the planned 20-year mission lifetime, directly involve more than a thousand educators of all types — K-12 teachers, science museum and planetarium educators, and public outreach specialists — as partners with

14884-555: Was successfully completed by January 2008 at NASA- Armstrong Flight Research Center. On December 18, 2009, the SOFIA aircraft performed the first test flight in which the telescope door was fully opened. This phase lasted for two minutes of the 79-minute flight. SOFIA's telescope saw first light on May 26, 2010, returning images showing M82 's core and heat from Jupiter 's formation escaping through its cloud cover. Initial "routine" science observation flights began in December 2010 and

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