The SOFIA airborne observatory is now outfitted with a new instrument: the German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies, or GREAT. This instrument, a receiver for spectroscopic observations at far-infrared frequencies between 1.2 and 5 terahertz, was built by a consortium of German research institutes, including the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, the University of Cologne in Germany, the German Aerospace Center and the Max Planck Institute in Lindau, Germany.
The GREAT instrument was mounted onto SOFIA on January 21 and will undergo a number of tests before the first scientific flights begin in April 2011.
SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a high-altitude airborne observatory housed in a highly modified Boeing 747SP jetliner. The infrared telescope is mounted in a cavity in the rear fuselage.
SOFIA is a joint venture of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. The aircraft is based at NASA’s Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale CA, and the scientific program is managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California.
