An Ames team was selected by peer review to build AIRES, the airborne infrared echelle spectrometer for SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. The objective is to develop a facility-class spectrometer for use by the international astronomical community. AIRES will be delivered to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), NASA's prime contractor for SOFIA, who will operate facility instruments for scientists with approved observing programs.
SOFIA is a unique airborne astronomical observatory currently under development. A Boeing 747 will be equipped to carry a 2.7-meter telescope to be operated at altitudes up to 45,000 feet, allowing infrared astronomical observations that are impossible from Earth. Being developed jointly by NASA and Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), the German Aerospace Center, SOFIA will be based at Ames with operations beginning in late 2002.
AIRES will operate at far-infrared wavelengths, approximately 30 to 400 times the wavelengths of visible light. Therefore, it will be ideal for spectral imaging of gas-phase phenomena in the interstellar medium (ISM), the vast and varied volume of space between the stars. Measurements of far-infrared spectral lines with AIRES will probe the pressure density, luminosity, excitation, mass distribution, chemical composition, heating and cooling rates, and kinematics in the various gaseous components of the ISM. These lines offer invaluable and often unique diagnostics of conditions in such diverse places as star-forming regions, circumstellar shells, the galactic center, starbursts in galaxies, and the nuclei of active galaxies energized by accretion of material on massive black holes. AIRES will provide astronomers with new insights into these and other environments in the ISM. It will also be useful for studies of solar system phenomena such as planetary atmospheres and comets, and a variety of other astronomical problems.
AIRES development began in November 1998. The design incorporates the world's largest monolithic "echelle" grating (see figure 1), an optical element that will provide good spectral resolution at far-infrared wavelengths. Two-dimensional infrared detector arrays will be used to simultaneously measure spectra in numerous locations on the sky, and to verify the location on the sky where the instrument is acquiring data. During the past year, many significant milestones have been reached, including the following: (a) the optical design has been completed; (b) the echelle grating has been fabricated; (c) the detector data system has been fabricated and tested with the imaging array detector; (d) the baseline project resource requirements have been redefined and the management revised; and
(e) an external preliminary design review team, selected by USRA, has approved the project for continued development.
Point of Contact: E. Erickson
(650) 604-5508
erickson@cygnus.arc.nasa.gov
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