NASA 747SP in Christchurch.

[Jaryd stock]

Pulled from NASA's media center.


SOFIA Southern Deployment Fact Sheet
NASA’s airborne observatory, SOFIA, is scheduled to make 9 science flights during its three-week deployment to Christchurch, New Zealand (July 12-Aug. 2, 2013).
SOFIA will deploy with approximately 60 staff members (ground and flight crew, mission operations staff, science team).
The observatory will depart the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility at Palmdale, Calif., on July 12 and fly to Honolulu for a flight crew change, then on to Christchurch, New Zealand.
During SOFIA’s Southern Deployment, the observatory will exclusively use the German REceiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies (GREAT), a dual channel, infrared heterodyne spectrometer. GREAT was developed by a consortium of German science institutions, led by Rolf Guesten and Stefan Heyminck from the Max- Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany.
GREAT works like a very high frequency radio receiver detecting light waves rather than light particles. Observations are made between 60 and 200 microns in three different frequencies.