2022 NASA Airborne Ambassador-SOFIA

2022 Cycle 10 AAA

September 23rd Burbank

After sleeping a few hours, and I might add it was a few hours. We headed back to Burbank to stay near the airport. However, we had another stop to make. We visited Vasquez Rocks Park. This would be another highlight to the trip. Vasquez Park is where Star Trek filmed the episode “Arena” with the Gorn. Star Trek seems to love this spot because a number of episodes and movies were shot at this spot (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-star-trek-50-vasquez-rocks-20160829-snap-story.html ). Now let’s talk about the science of the rock formation. It’s a result of uplifting, tilting and erosion. Some of the rock types such as red sandstone and fanglomerate are resistant to erosion. This is what creates the angles and unique formations. You can find more information and geological science at here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasquez_Rocks . After leaving Vasquez we dropped one of group off at the airport then went to our hotel.

Later, we had one last excursion. We visited Griffith Observatory. I have to admit I almost didn’t go because I was tired. But my group talked me into it. And I don’t regret it, thanked them for that. Griffith J. Griffith started Griffith Observatory (https://griffithobservatory.org/ ) opened in 1935. It hosts a Zeiss telescope, which we were able to view Saturn. It was nice ending to a wonderful experience. And Bonus, Leonard Nimoy has a theater named after him. Star Trek Everywhere!!

The next day we departed Burbank to head home. I’m never going to forget this experience. The amount of information I got for my classroom was amazing. SOFIA is the highlight of my Professional Development. Now its time to sort through the information and create some lessons for the kids. If you are interested in SOFIA and applying, go to their website they have information on Cycle 11 AAA group. Your district might already be a part of the program.

I hope everyone enjoyed this blog.

September 23rd

WOW! Is all I can say. The second flight happened and was an enormous success in many ways. We started the day by taking a tour of SOFIA’s lab. There are various instruments that collect data in different ways on SOFIA. They are all listed on the SOFIA website (https://www.sofia.usra.edu/instruments/sofia-instruments-suite ), but to hear the details on how they work was a great lesson in engineering. A common theme among all of them; they had to be cooled in some way. I’ll keep it simple because it can get complicated, a lot of physics and chemistry, to keep the instruments cooled with liquid helium. The helium is cooled to make sure the instruments are kept at ideal temperature to collect data. The details of each instrument and how they are cooled are listed on the SOFIA website. The physics and science behind these instruments are amazing and the discoveries (I’ll call them that) are helping the science community today. Recently, using FORCAST SOFIA helped scientists distinguish between hydroxyl and water.

“With its Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST), SOFIA can look at 6.1-micron emission features from the Moon, a wavelength of emission unique to water” https://blogs.nasa.gov/sofia/2022/08/26/sofia-finds-more-water-in-the-moons-southern-hemisphere/

This is great example of what the SOFIA mission can do.

One of the science missions for that night was to finish a legacy project and mapping various galaxies. Trying to find the cause for the lack of Star Formation.

We reached 44,000 ft and finished all the science for the mission. And to highlight the night we saw the Northern Lights. An amazing sight, another check off the bucket list. The night was a success all around and one I was happy to be a part of. We arrived back a little earlier than anticipated, which I think didn’t bother any of the teachers. We were all exhausted from the week. But a good exhaustion!

Later that day we would head on our last part of the journey. But for now, we are the last Teacher Ambassador group to fly on SOFIA. So we named our group the Omega AAA! I’ve added more photos to the photo album.

September 22nd

Yesterday was a long day, but today will be even longer. Our second and last flight will be tonight. Meanwhile we headed to see the Endeavor at the California Science Center. This was a nice break, but I will say everyone was tired. Pretty much we had very little sleep after landing.

If you ever get a chance to see a shuttle, do it! The center is building a new place for Endeavor. It will be the only shuttle to be standing up in launch position. One of the guides was telling us that California is proud of the Shuttle and one of the reasons why is it was built at Hangar 703 at Armstrong. Here is a brief history of the relationship between Armstrong and the Shuttle (https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-015-DFRC.html ).

This was the highlight of our day. Ended it with a nice dinner and talking with another SOFIA person. Tonight, will be the last flight, we will take a tour of the Lab facilities at Armstrong and then get ready to fly. Before flights you have briefings where everyone on the Manifest will attend. The mission director will go over what science will be done and who is on board for the flight.

Tomorrow we will land get some sleep then head to our hotels near the airport. Three us are flying out on Saturday. The other two are leaving tomorrow. Before you know it, the trip is over. But I know one thing I never forget it.

 September 21st

WOW! That is all I can say. I landed at 3:50 am PT from our first flight and I can’t wait for our second flight. We lifted off at 6:29 pm and were in the air for 10 hours. I will admit near the end I started to feel a bit tired and caught myself nodding off.  But the experience is one I will never forget.

To start the night, we watched the EPO monitors, this is where we watched all the readings for the flight. Altitude, Longitude, Latitude, temperature, and the telescope readings. Pretty cool at one point we were at 43,000 ft and the temperature outside the plane was -56 C and pressure was 186 mb. Standard pressure on Earth is 1013 mb (Class we will learn about this topic). There is a significant difference.  Inside the plane it was pretty cold too.

During the flight the telescope would gather data for 4 research topics. Pretty interesting topics too, the common theme among the topics was the influence of the Magnetic field on Star Formation. I can’t get detailed because the data gathered is proprietary. Which means it’s a secret until the scientists decide to release in their written papers. What I will say is the data they did gather looked awesome. Star Formation has become a hot topic because its decreasing in our galaxy. According to some of the scientists, we should be forming 100 stars a day, but right now they are seeing a much less formation. If you’re interested in this topic check out this article at Space.com (https://www.space.com/18370-universe-star-formation-rate-decline.html ). It’s a bit old, but informative.

As the flight went, something happened with the ADR. Which is an interesting instrument, it works with the HWAC instrument on board. I’m not going to get detailed, because I’m not allowed but here is some information on the HWAC+ instrument (https://www.sofia.usra.edu/instruments/hawc).  The HWAC+ is cooled by adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator, it uses heat and magnetic properties to cool instruments between 5K-1K. Amazing right, all physics, hopefully my physics teachers will appreciate this, 😊. There are a couple of places you can go to read about the science behind this cooling mechanism (https://testbook.com/learn/physics-adiabatic-demagnetization/ or https://www.britannica.com/science/adiabatic-demagnetization ). The best part of about this was the teamwork that went on with everyone (students please note this next bit). No one was mean or angry all they did was work as a team to solve the problem. Collaboration is a big part of NASA, and this was a great example of teamwork.

Next up was the cockpit with the Pilots and Navigator. And this was cool. Spoke with the pilots and they just rocked it. I’ll post some pictures later; on the next flight I’ll be inside the cockpit for takeoff. The pilots for this flight were James Less and Elizabeth Ruth, both fly missions for NASA. Both are pilots in the Air Force and love what they do. I asked them why the military, and they pretty much said why not? They went through ROTC and from there, they both just wanted to be pilots. Ruth works on NASA’s Gulf Stream research aircraft. She will be heading to do other stuff. While Less will be piloting other aircraft for the Air Force.

There were a lot of people to speak with through the flight. Our mission directors were great, Charlie Kaminiski, we had dinner with the other night. He kept an eye on us all night making sure we were enjoying our experience. Will Montgomerie talked to us about his career, he joined SOFIA as a telescope operator and worked his way up to mission director. Pretty cool right. Both have had a wonderful career with SOFIA. Telescope operators were awesome to speak to. We spoke to two and they walked us through what they were doing. They enjoyed talking to us about their career paths.

By the time we landed, I was a bit tired. But so happy to have had the opportunity to fly with these people. All of them welcomed us and were willing to talk with us about their careers. It was a night I will never forget!! Next Flight is Thursday into Friday. Stay tuned for that and our Endeavor Trip.

September 20th

Today is our first flight, we will leave Armstrong Center (https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/about/index.html ) at 6:30 pm and return at 3:30 am, flight will last 10 hours. I found out yesterday we fly at about 43,000 feet. Which isn’t that much above where commercial airlines fly. But the difference is we are carrying a 17-ton telescope and flying on a 747. Amazing engineering to keep the telescope from moving while the plane is flying. Since this is the one of the last Teacher Flights, we will have one of the best pilots flying the plane. Can’t wait to hear the crews’ stories and do a few interviews for my classes.

Yesterday we toured Hangar 703 and did our life support egress training. This is mandatory for anyone flying on SOFIA. Of course, no one wants anything to happen, but you need to be prepared. After this we were able to tour the interior of SOFIA. Our lead person explained the different areas of the plane and instructed us on our communications equipment. While there we had some special visitors, Robert Cabana (https://www.nasa.gov/biographies/associate-administrator-robert-cabana ) and other dignitaries from NASA administration. After they left, we did some photo ops on the plane. Tons of photos are being dropped into the Google Album for everyone to see.

Some highlights of the day were on board the plane, we took some photos. One of the neatest things onboard, other than the telescope, was the wall of signatures. My hero Nichelle Nichols signed the wall and actually was on board when a group of teachers went. Would have loved to have been on that flight. Other names like Bill Nye and some astronauts were on the wall.

The other really neat thing that happened was we meet with the Project Mission Director for the ER-2 missions (https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/aircraft/ER-2/index.html ). This is a sub-orbital mission that tests various instruments for satellites. Since this plane is used by the military, we can’t take pictures of it. But we got to meet the woman in charge. We talked with her for a few minutes and discussed the opportunities students have in the future with NASA. She stressed that opportunities were abundant and would be in the future because of retirements. She liked working for NASA because it was a great community. This is something I hear from everyone who works for them. They enjoy their work and work with some awesome people.

The day ended with a meal and meeting the German Person who was head of the German program for teachers. She was incredibly sad about leaving and loved being a part of the program. Just a little background here, Germany are partners with NASA on SOFIA. That is why the German flag is with the American on the decal. Germany’s program is called DLR (https://www.dlr.de/EN/Home/home_node.html ) and DSI (https://www.dsi.uni-stuttgart.de/en/). Right now no one knows what is going to happen to the German component of the mission, it hasn’t been decided on what the future will hold. Before she left, we talked about working with other German teachers during the year on different topics. Great idea and hopefully this will work out. It was a long day and today will be even longer. I hope everyone is enjoying the posts and pictures

Just received our flight plans here they are SOFIA Flight Plans

September 19th-

Had a wonderful time last night meeting our Flight Manager and telescope operators. Just a side note to all my female students. Both operators were young women who received their bachelor’s degree in Astrophysics. They have been operating the telescope for a few years. They have been a part of some amazing discoveries on SOFIA. So, my point is, they are great role models for all young woman and anyone who sets their mind to it can do this type of work.

The Flight Manager Charles also had an amazing career. He is retiring after SOFIA closes operations in October. For him his career has taken him to the South Pole and various locations for NASA. He is flying his 360th mission with SOFIA this week. No one else in the program has that many flights. More on him later.

One thing that came out of the meeting last night was that being the last group of teachers to be on board the aircraft will help ease into their last week of flying.

I’m with an amazing group of teachers from across the country. We all received our flight jackets, not all of us. Some of us have to wait on our jacket, but we were given some to wear for photo ops. Check out the Photo Album for updates on pictures. Hopefully I will start posting video soon.

September 18th-

1st Leg of the Journey is complete arrived at Burbank Airport (known as Bob Hope Airport) which I love. Old style airport, have to admit it needs an uplift. On another note the first thing to be done is to have a meeting tonight. Will continue to post. Check out the pictures for today: Album

Countdown Begins

In two days my NASA Experience will begin. The excitement is building and looking forward to writing about it. Stay Tuned for updates!!