Environmental testing for new SOFIA flight hardware

Lachenmann, Michael; Wolf, Jürgen; Strecker, Rainer; Weckenmann, Benedikt; Trimpe, Fritz; Hall, Helen J.

doi:10.1117/12.2056976

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…It was decided to test several commercial o®-the-shelf lenses to¯nd a lens that can retain a stable focus during conditions on the ground as well as in°ight (without mechanically adjusting the focus). Out of several candidates a Canon Cine lens with f ¼ 85 mm and T =1:3 was selected (Lachenmann et al, 2014). Coupled with the same camera that will be used for the FFIþ, it will be sensitive to stars of at least V ¼ 11 mag.…”

Section: Wide¯eld Imagermentioning

confidence: 99%

The SOFIA Telescope in Full Operation

Reinacher

Graf

Greiner

et al. 2018

J. Astron. Instrum.

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The SOFIA telescope is a 2.5[Formula: see text]m class Cassegrain telescope with Nasmyth focus. It is the largest telescope ever integrated into an aircraft. The telescope is exposed to the stratospheric environment during the observations and the fact that the telescope’s foundation, which is a Boeing 747 SP, is vibrating and moving in all degrees of freedom (DoF) requires a highly specialized and sophisticated design. Based on the telescope of its predecessor, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO), the SOFIA telescope design had to evolve to accommodate a telescope 2.5 times the size of KAO. In several hundred successful observation flights, the telescope proved that it performs not only as specified, but is also extremely reliable. Nevertheless, the telescope’s software and hardware are continuously upgraded to optimize its performance without interfering with the observation schedules to reach even more ambitious image size and pointing jitter goals to enable additional science cases. In addition, manufacturing of the line-replaceable units is in process to ensure that the SOFIA telescope can perform without any major interruptions for the envisioned 20 year lifetime. Some of the main features of the SOFIA telescope are its suspension assembly (SUA), which decouples the telescope from SOFIA’s fuselage with air springs and a spherical oil bearing, the extremely stiff Nasmyth tube (NT), which connects cavity and cabin mounted components of the dumbbell design, and the Secondary Mirror Assembly (SMA), which is used for chopping and fast pointing corrections. This paper aims to give an overview of these and all other major telescope subsystems in operation today. In addition, some of the upgrades, either implemented recently or slated for implementation shortly, are introduced.

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Section: Wide¯eld Imagermentioning

confidence: 99%