Kuiper Airborne Observatory

NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory

The Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) was a by Gerard Kuiper called Cassegrain telescope with 91.5 centimeter diameter mirror, which is a converted military transport type Lockheed C-141A was housed. It was used by NASA from 1974 to 1995 mainly for infrared astronomy . With the KAO , among other things, the Uranus rings were discovered on March 10, 1977 when the planet Uranus covered the star SAO142857 .

The idea of ​​accommodating an infrared telescope on board an aircraft goes back to G. Kuiper. This was first realized in the 1960s, when astronomical observations were made with a small infrared telescope through a window of the NASA research aircraft Galileo .

The direct predecessor of the KAO was the Lear Jet Observatory (LJO) , which opened in 1967 . This was a Learjet 24 aircraft in which a cabin window had been removed and replaced by an opening for an infrared telescope with a mirror diameter of 30 centimeters.

The Kuiper Airborne Observatory was decommissioned in 1995 and could be viewed at the Moffett Field Historical Society Museum at Moffett Federal Airfield until at least early 2019 .

After that, LJO received two new cameras in 1998, now digital and looking up through openings in the top of the cell. The successor SOFIA carried out its first observations at the end of 2010.

• 

  C-141A NASA-714 KAO

• 

  C-141A NASA-714 KAO

• 

  KAO in flight

• 

  Telescope of the KAO with technician

• 

  KAO and SOFIA , Ames Research Center 2008

• 

  Telescope and operator area in the KAO

See also

• Airborne astronomy
• Observational Astronomy
• Multi-wavelength astronomy

Web links

Commons : Kuiper Airborne Observatory  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

• About the Kuiper Airborne Observatory ( Memento August 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). quest.arc.nasa.gov
• The Compact Cosmic Ray Telescope aboard the Kuiper Airborne Observatory
• KAO Marks 30th Anniversary of its Dedication
• Milestones in Airborne Astronomy - From the 1920's to the Present (PDF 3 MB, accessed March 30, 2009)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, 1971–1995: An Operations Retrospective With a View to SOFIA . nasa.gov, (PDF, 55 MB), accessed November 15, 2014
2. ^ Gallery ... ( Memento from January 21, 2019 in the Internet Archive ). airandspace.si.edu