NASA and DLR to End SOFIA Operations
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NASA and DLR to end SOFIA operations - SpaceNews:
NASA and the German space agency DLR announced they will end operations for SOFIA, which is an airborne astrophysics observatory that flies a 2.7-meter infrared telescope on a Boeing 747. Operations will end no later than Sept. 30, at the conclusion of its current extended mission.
SOFIA's future has been in question in recent years because of its high operating cost. NASA spends about $85 million a year on SOFIA, more than any other operational astrophysics mission except the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA proposed terminating funding for SOFIA in its fiscal year 2021 and 2022 budget proposals, only to have Congress restore funding.
The Astro2020 astrophysics decadal survey, published in November, recommended NASA shut down SOFIA, citing its high cost and limited scientific productivity. "Relative to its cost, SOFIA has not been scientifically productive or impactful over its duration," the survey's final report stated, concluding that NASA end SOFIA operations by 2023.
[...] The agencies did not offer details on how it will shut down SOFIA. "SOFIA will finish out its scheduled operations for the 2022 fiscal year, followed by an orderly shutdown," NASA stated, with data it collected placed in online archives.
[...] "The cessation of SOFIA's flight operations is by no means the end of German-American cooperation," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, said in a DLR statement. He said the agencies will hold a joint workshop this summer to identify potential new projects "in future scientific fields."
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