(NASA)
NASA will not continue funding the SOFIA flying stratospheric observatory and it will close the project in 2023.
Such a decision was made due to the high cost of annual maintenance of the project and the insufficient level of scientific productivity.
SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) is a joint project launched in 2010 by NASA and the German Air and Space Center (DLR).
The observatory is a 2.5-meter reflecting telescope equipped with 7 scientific instruments and mounted at the rear of a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft.
Because the aircraft flies at altitudes of 12–14 kilometers in the Earth’s stratosphere, it becomes possible to conduct observations in most of the infrared wavelength range.
Those wavelengths are little accessible to ground-based telescopes due to the absorption of radiation by water vapor in the lower layers of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The range of scientific tasks of SOFIA is quite extensive, the observatory conducts observations of star-forming regions and the interstellar medium of the Milky Way
It also observes objects of the Solar System, exoplanets, supernova remnants and the centers of other galaxies containing black holes.
In particular, SOFIA found water molecules in a crater on the visible side of the Moon and proved the presence of HeH+ molecular ions, which were the first molecules in the Universe, in outer space.
In 2019, an independent NASA panel concluded that the observatory, which costs $85 million a year to operate, produced an average of 21 scientific papers per year in its first 5 years of operation, making it one of the least productive telescopes in the world.
In February 2020, the Donald Trump administration proposed to close the project due to its inefficiency, but this did not happen.
However, in November last year, a new NASA Astrophysical Decade Review was published, which recommended curtailing the program as early as 2023: the observatory has not shown an increase in its efficiency to a level commensurate with its cost.
This decision was criticized by the project team, who were against the completion of the work.
On March 28, 2022, the White House presented NASA's fiscal year 2023 budget plan.
It does not provide funding for the continued operation of SOFIA, but does offer funding for an orderly closure of the project next year in line with the advice of the scientific community.
It is noted that the annual budget of the project is the second largest among astrophysical programs, but scientific productivity is incommensurable with other large scientific missions.
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I like to see the moon with my neighbor's telescope
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