Oct 26, 2025
SOFIA lifting off from Cologne Bonn Airport - 2021
SOFIA was a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that housed a 2.7-meter (106-inch) reflecting telescope, making it the largest airborne observatory in the world. The name SOFIA stands for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.
he SOFIA mission concluded its final science flight on September 29, 2022, after a recommendation from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to discontinue the mission due to high operating costs and insufficient scientific return. The aircraft's final resting place is the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.
