US and German engineers have begun installing the first parts of a 2.5m (8.2ft) telescope in the interior of a former United Airlines Boeing 747SP at Waco, Texas, as the key element of the aircraft's conversion to NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
The telescope, built by MAN Technologies using Kayser-Threde optics, has three main parts and weighs around 14,500kg (32,000lb), the main part of which is the support structure and suspension assembly.
Installation at L-3 Communications Integrated Systems will take up to nine months. With flight tests starting in late 2003, the 747SP is due at NASA Ames, California, by June 2004 for final shake-down tests. SOFIA will begin infrared (IR) astronomical observations that year.
SOFIA will be the largest airborne telescope ever made, and with the 747SP's high cruise altitude will be able to provide "virtually unrestricted" access to all IR wavelengths by staying above 41,000ft and 99% of the Earth's atmospheric water vapour.
Source: Flight International
