Over the next five years, a team of experts at the Institute of Space Systems (IRS) at the University of Stuttgart will be assembling the SOFIA Data Center (SDC). The objective is to make the data collected by SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, available to the international astronomical community in optimal shape for further scientific use. At this year's annual meeting of the German Astronomical Society in Cologne from September 9 to 13, 2024, Bernhard Schulz, project scientist of the SDC and former SOFIA Science Mission Deputy Director, presented the SDC to the scientific community.
After SOFIA, a joint project of the German and American space agencies, DLR and NASA, ceased observation operations in September 2022, there will no longer be an observatory capable of detecting far-infrared radiation for at least ten to twenty years due to the long development phases of such projects. “Therefore, every photon that SOFIA has detected and whose measurement will be stored in the SDC archive is currently extremely valuable,” says Schulz. ”We want to support German and international astronomers with our work to fully exploit SOFIA's scientific heritage and to still publish many more articles based on this archive.”
Continuous optimization
Before researchers can scientifically analyze astronomical observations, this data must first undergo a basic processing, where, for example, interfering factors of the detectors are remedied or various data points are assigned the correct wavelengths. The software required for this is continuously optimized and at the end of the operational phase of large observatories, it is common practice to process all data again with its latest version. For an airborne observatory like SOFIA, additional factors such as improved coordinate reconstruction - derived from the observatory's guiding cameras - or new corrections for the existing infrared-absorbing atmospheric water vapor play a role. Together with the scientific data, this technical and operational information will also be stored in the SDC archive. Numerous former employees of the German SOFIA Institute (DSI), which coordinated SOFIA activities on behalf of DLR during the operational phase, will contribute their expertise.
Compatible with the Virtual Observatory
With the help of workshops and webinars or in direct individual consultation, the SDC will support researchers in dealing with the SOFIA observations. The data in the SDC archive, whose structure will adhere to the Virtual Observatory (VO) standard, is available free of charge to researchers from all over the world. This way, SOFIA data can be easily combined and compared with data from other observatories that have observed the same object, for instance at different wavelengths or at different times. The SDC was officially launched in July 2024. At the end of its term at the end of June 2029, The SDC-archive will be permanently transferred to the German Astronomical Center in Görlitz.
On the American side, NASA only reprocessed a limited amount of data during the approximately one-year post-operational phase of SOFIA and then made all the data available to the Infrared Science Archive at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), a NASA science center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The SDC plans to collaborate with IPAC so that the two archives remain in sync.
The SDC is funded by the DLR Space Administration under grant number FKZ 50OK2404.
Futher Links to the News:
- SOFIA: Data goldmine for astronomical research, News of the University of Stuttgart, September 12, 2024
- SOFIA Data Center Secures Scientific Heritage, News of the German Astronomical Society, Septemver 12, 2024
Further SOFIA Links:
- SOFIA Science Center beim NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive
- NASA SOFIA Missionsseite
- NASA SOFIA blog
- SOFIA Missionsseite der DLR Raumfahrtagentur
- DLR Blogs zu SOFIA
- Zur SOFIA-Bildergalerie
- Zur News-Übersicht
- Zur Projektchronik
SOFIA, the "Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy" is a joint project of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR; German Aerospace Center, grant: 50OK0901, 50OK1301, 50OK1701, and 50OK2002) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It is funded on behalf of DLR by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action based on legislation by the German Parliament, the State of Baden-Württemberg and the University of Stuttgart. SOFIA activities are coordinated on the German side by the German Space Agency at DLR and carried out by the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart, and on the U.S. side by NASA and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA).