Original subtitles

NARRATOR: She's unlike any other 747

on Earth, a flying telescope and space

observatory named SOFIA.

Everybody kind of calls us the vampire.

We only come out at night.

NARRATOR: Her job-- to peer into corners of the universe

never before seen by man.

We can go places and see things that other telescopes

can't do.

NARRATOR: But SOFIA is grounded,

and the pressure's on to get her back to work, fast.

You could actually crash the airplane.

The stakes could be deadly.

It might be some small little thing that kills you.

NARRATOR: On a mission this precise,

there is no margin for error.

[theme music]

This is Plant 42 of the Mojave Desert.

It's a top secret military airfield on the outskirts

of Palmdale, California.

Highly classified aircraft, like the U-2 spy plane

and the SR-71 Blackbird were all tested

here in the '60s and '70s.

In 2002, another unique project was in the works.

Behind closed hangar doors, an infrared telescope

was carefully unveiled.

In an amazing feat of engineering,

the telescope was installed into a 747,

creating what is currently the world's

only flying observatory, also run out of plant 42.

It's one of a kind asset for NASA.

There's not another one like it in the world.

NARRATOR: It's called the Stratospheric

Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA for short.

While on the outside, she looks like a normal 747.

On the inside, SOFIA is one of a kind.

She is operated jointly by the American and German

space agencies.

We've changed everything.

It's not your father's and grandfather's 747 anymore.

NARRATOR: Her job is to ferry scientists into the night sky

and look into space, like no other telescope can.

Flying as high as 45,000 feet, she offers astronomers

a clean line of sight well above clouds and weather,

which block infrared light.

In 2011, Pluto eclipsed a distant star

and, for a few minutes, cast a shadow over the Pacific Ocean.

SOFIA was the only observatory in the world

able to reach the remote location and study the event.

We ended up hitting the center of the shadow of Pluto

within 100 kilometers which is not too shabby for something

that far away.

NARRATOR: The mission allowed astronomers

a chance to study Pluto's atmosphere

without having to leave Earth.

The Pluto Project proved SOFIA to be a vital tool in helping

to unlock the secrets of how our solar system

and cosmos were formed.

But shortly after this triumph, SOFIA

was grounded for a major upgrade of her avionics

and telescope control systems.

It's a complicated job, now four months behind schedule.

Her scientists are frustrated.

The delays that we've been experiencing

are really very bad for the project.

There are science missions that are

probably not going to occur.

NARRATOR: Crew Chief Steve Robinson

will be giving the go-ahead for SOFIA to fly again,

but only after her dated 35-year-old analog

instruments are replaced with new digital ones.

Take all the gauges out, all the wiring out of the cockpit,

rewire it, put all new instruments in.

It's been quite the undertaking.

NARRATOR: All this advanced technology can be quite heavy.

The telescope itself weighs in the neighborhood

of 20 metric tons.

We have miles and miles of wiring.

The door that opens for the telescope to see out,

that weighs 2,500 pounds by itself.

NARRATOR: The time has come to see if SOFIA is

now too heavy to fly safely.

Aircraft scales are moved into position.

Getting SOFIA's exact weight and balance is vital.

If you don't have the center of gravity just right,

it will not fly right in the air.

NARRATOR: It's the moment of truth.

This one right now is reading 11,920 some odd pounds.

NARRATOR: Sophia's weight and balance is within the limits

for safe flight.

The pressure is on to finish the upgrade

and get SOFIA airborne, but cutting corners

isn't an option.

From the scientific community,

all the way down through the program office,

through my immediate bosses, they're

all you pushing, get it done.

Get it done.

But we will not do anything that will compromise

the safety of the airplane.

NARRATOR: The next step is a full test

flight to see if SOFIA's new instruments

are working properly.

He's been doing a good job of it.

NARRATOR: Chief Pilot Troy Asher

gets a look at his new cockpit for the first time.

Steering bar is following real nice.

Yeah, OK.

NARRATOR: Troy's main concern is getting the autopilot

to make very small turns in-flight to keep

the telescope stable.

If I want to just do very, very small headings,

like 1 or 2 degrees, we just want

it to just really not turn.

That, we can probably fix.

OK.

Because we have that big telescope in the back,

it needs to be as stable as possible.

Most airplanes don't really care

about how much they roll when you make a heading change,

but we do.

Because when the airplane rolls,

it moves the whole telescope in space.

So they want to keep that rolling motion

down to as small as possible.

What are you getting roll there?

Are you showing zero on your side exactly?

Are they close?

I get about a half a degree of yolk displacement.

I think we can cut that in half.

My impression of the new avionics suite right now,

I'm liking it more and more all the time.

We're out of here.

All right, guys, we'll see you--

Well, good. Thank you very much.

We'll see you guys soon.

NARRATOR: The Boeing 747 was the world's

first jumbo jet airliner.

With an upper and lower deck, it was designed

to carry over 400 passengers.

Sophia is a 747 SP or special performance version, with

greater range and endurance.

It was built to fly from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia,

or Los Angeles to Tokyo back in the '70s, when

not a lot of airplanes could do that very well.

NARRATOR: Designed for long distance flying,

SOFIA's SP model is shorter and lighter than an ordinary 747.

It measures 177 feet in length and stands

more than 65 high with an impressive wingspan

of 196 feet.

Out on the ramp, the ground crew

puts Sophia through a series of engine tests.

It has been a year since her for Pratt

and Whitney turbofan engines have been fired up.

There's over 30 power switches for.

Four are on.

NARRATOR: Crew Chief Steve Robinson

directs the operation from the flight engineer's seat.

Yes, we're going to do some maintenance engine

runs over on the NASA ramp.

NARRATOR: Aviation mechanic Pat Vantelin

is the eyes on the ground for the crew in the cockpit.

They can't see dangerous fuel leaks

that could cause engine fires.

We're going to do leak checks on all of the engines.

We bring fire extinguishers out here,

and we do have those on standby,

as we're starting the engines.

NARRATOR: Steve runs through the engine start checklist.

You got a good rotation.

Start valve open.

I have in two.

I have oil pressure.

OK, we're at max motor.

Give me fuel.

The fuel flow, EGT rising.

NARRATOR: A rising EGT or exhaust gas temperature

shows the engine has started and is functioning properly.

OK, you're clear on fourth.

Clear on fourth.

The fuel flow, I have CST pressure.

No leaks.

Everything's working as advertised.

NARRATOR: Despite a year of sitting inactive,

SOFIA's engines performed perfectly.

Yes, NASA 747 heavy is advising

termination of engine runs.

To get through this first step of engine run

is just such a relief.

It is so important.

It's one of the huge major milestones

to get ready to go fly.

NARRATOR: With the engine tests over,

SOFIA is now ready for her avionics test flight,

when anything and everything could go wrong.

You never really know what's going to happen.

You could actually crash the airplane.

You could put the airplane into a situation

that you didn't expect.

It could flip upside down, for instance,

or you could get a large bank angle or a large G-Force

or something like that, and you want to minimize

the risk to humans on there.

NARRATOR: Troy briefs the flight and ground crew.

Nothing is left to chance.

On schedule, we take off on time.

We got about an hour, late takeoff capability.

NARRATOR: Steve Robinson has the final word on

whether SOFIA is ready to fly.

So nothing's stopping us, as far as you know.

As far as I know, nothing is stopping.

We should be good to go today.

OK.

NARRATOR: Flight Engineer Tim Sanden

conducts a pre-flight inspection to spot

any final potential problems.

Planes do very well when they fly every day.

They don't do very well when they sit.

We check the general condition of the tires,

make sure that there are no cuts or abrasions, nothing

in the tire, check the struts for proper extension,

check and make sure that all hardware

is secure anywhere that we can see it in the wheel.

All right, the around is complete.

No discrepancies.

Happy with the condition of the airplane

after a year of maintenance.

Looking forward to today's first flight.

NARRATOR: At the last moment, Chief Pilot Troy Asher

is concerned that his long awaited test

flight is in trouble.

Weather's not looking so good.

I was just looking at the--

the computer systems all say the weather is OK.

But when you come outside, it doesn't necessarily agree.

And I'm not really liking what I see

right now, so I don't know.

Earlier, we agreed that we were going

to have a certain weather condition,

and we don't have it.

We'll see.

We'll see.

We might have to delay a little bit.

NARRATOR: It's a high risk test flight with lives on the line.

The weather must be perfect, or the mission will be scrubbed.

SOFIA, the world's only flying observatory

is ready for takeoff on a long delayed test flight.

NASA is desperate to get their flying

telescope back in operation after a year-long upgrade.

Crew Chief Steve Robinson officially turned SOFIA over

to Chief Pilot Troy Asher.

I'm releasing the airplane for flight.

It's ready to go fly.

And I'm certifying all our maintenance is good,

and the airplane is in good condition for the boss

to take it for this flight.

There's a lot of paperwork that

goes along with these, especially after an airplane's

been modified.

It's been sitting on the ground for about a year.

And these big machines, like this, the more you

fly them, the better they fly.

And if you don't fly them at all, they don't fly very well.

Good day, Steve.

Looks real good.

All the paperwork is signed off.

And so, we're just waiting for the clouds.

NARRATOR: After months of technical delays,

the latest comes from mother nature.

This weather is not going to get any better today, probably

not until next week, maybe.

NARRATOR: Safety is paramount, and the weather for the test

flight needs to be perfect.

The operation is canceled.

The problem is, for this flight,

we just ripped out all of the instruments

out of the front of the cockpit.

The pilots use those flight instruments and navigation

instruments to get through the clouds

to find the airport to land.

We don't even know if they're going to work.

And if all of that new--

all those new instruments completely

fail, and we're in the weather, we could lose the airplane.

But we're just going to be a weather cancel for today.

OK.

Go ahead and tow the plane back in, and get ready for Monday.

Hopefully, Monday.

Hopefully.

NARRATOR: It's going to be at least three or four days

before the weather clears.

The delay allows the crew to do some finishing touches.

One task is to recondition the latches on her nosecone.

There's a little bit too much force

required to close these when we put

the radome on the airplane.

Just need a lot of people to hold it up there

and get it into position.

That's probably the hardest part.

NARRATOR: It's a delicate job that

requires finesse, patience, and, in the end,

a little bit of muscle.

Good.

Once we're latched, we're all done.

We're good to go.

She's on.

They're good.

NARRATOR: On the 747's main deck, the panels are off,

and the maintenance team wires the new telescope

control system.

We're trying to get ready for flight.

We're really, really trying to prepare for flight.

We're a little bit behind schedule,

as far as that's concerned.

But you know, we're making--

do the best we can.

NARRATOR: Ted needs to use his own judgment.

The drawings aren't always right.

This wire right here was originally supposed to come up

here from the top down to here, but it somehow

got overlooked, so we had to red line the drawings

and bring this wire from up here,

down through here in red lining to go through this connector

so that it can come to here and still function properly.

Just one missed pin or misplaced wire

or even overlooked wire can cause things

not to function properly.

NARRATOR: Putting a 34,000 pounds telescope into the 747

meant cutting a large hole in the fuselage.

In-flight, a purpose built observatory door opens

up to expose the telescope.

Behind the science cabin, a bulkhead

maintains air pressure and protects

the scientists from the open telescope cavity.

Four days have passed.

Skies are clear over Central California.

It's game on for SOFIA's five-hour avionics

test flight.

Plagued by delays, this flight has

been 12 months in the making.

So I got up this morning with rain all over my house

and my car in my head.

But by the time we got in, it cleared out,

and we got a nice beautiful blue skies.

So it looks like we're a go.

NARRATOR: The crew starts their pre-flight checks.

At nearby Edwards Air Force Base,

Pilot Nils Larsson gets ready to fly an F-18 chase

plane right beside the 747.

With all the new instrumentation

in SOFIA's cockpit, he'll be checking

the accuracy of her readouts by comparing them to his own.

I'm going to make sure that all

my readings are the same as their readings in the cockpit.

So when they call for a call out,

I'll give them my airspeed, my altitude, my mark and heading.

So they can compare it with their cockpit to make sure

that their instruments, since they're

brand new and brand new installed,

are reading the same as mine.

NARRATOR: Nils taxis into position for takeoff.

And in minutes, we'll meet up with SOFIA at Palmdale.

[radio chatter]

For takeoff, your discretion.

30 seconds.

NARRATOR: Chase Pilot Nils Larson

approaches the runway to line up with SOFIA,

as she readies for takeoff.

With each engine pushing out 50,000 of thrust,

SOFIA rolls down runway 25.

The F-18 pairs up with the huge 747.

She has 12,000 of runway, but needs

only 5,000 to get airborne.

[radio chatter]

Her 18 wheels are successfully retracted.

With scientists eagerly waiting to get back to their flying

observatory, this critical test flight is

a make it or break it mission.

SOFIA, the world's only flying observatory is in the air

after a 12 month retrofit.

As a safety precaution, NASA's F-18 chase plane

is off the 747 wingtip to make sure

her new untested instruments are reading correctly.

Yeah, pretty much like observation position now.

NARRATOR: Slowing down the fast F-18

to keep pace with SOFIA's ascent

is a challenge for pilot Nils Larsen.

The airborne pickup is a little bit different.

It's a little bit more challenging

between me trying to stay airborne

and not fall out of the sky.

And you know, big airplane, big wing.

They can get airborne at a slower speed.

NARRATOR: With SOFIA's four engines, putting out

a combined thrust of 200,000 pounds,

she's climbing at 2,300 feet per minute.

Once they're in clear airspace, the crew

discovers a big problem.

The autopilot is acting up.

They asked Nils Larsen to visually check SOFIA's flight

controls, especially the elevators at the back

of the tail, which control the planes up and down movement.

We're good?

We're seeing a lot of switching in our autopilot.

Do you see anything on our flight controls?

Little small movement?

Yeah, the interesting thing is

it looks like the outboard section is a couple of degrees

down, but the inboard section is up.

That's not going to be good for the telescope.

NARRATOR: The autopilot isn't holding altitude,

and it must perform perfectly for the telescope

to keep an accurate fix on the sky.

The test flight continues with the F-18 in close proximity,

observing SOFIA's every move.

The challenging part is if something goes wrong,

that's trying to convey to them what you see

and that kind of thing.

That's usually the most challenging.

Nils' other big problem is the turbulent jet

wash that comes off SOFIA's four powerful jet engines.

You have to watch getting too close when it comes

to-- primarily when you're transiting

back and forth to look at one side versus the other.

Those engines are big.

They put a lot a lot of thrust.

So watching out for that.

And we're starting our left turn for the 1.2.

NARRATOR: With a Chase plane holding position off SOFIA's

wing, they compare airspeeds.

I'm showing 0.700.

OK.

And I don't know if you heard, chase

had everything we had with identical

to what the pilot had.

And push it up to 25.

NARRATOR: SOFIA's airspeed indicator

matches that of the F-18.

Except for the faulty autopilot,

things are looking good.

Back in the NASA hanga, life support technician Robert

Peterson inspects a spare emergency

evacuation slide that's been salvaged from another 747.

We see a little bit of discoloration on the slide

area due to mildew, and that will

be something that'll have to be addressed

at the recertification process.

This is an easily replaced surface, not inexpensive,

but it's certainly well within recertification

and repacking criteria.

At a glance, we're very pleased with the condition

of this slide, albeit a 35-year-old slide.

NARRATOR: Hard to find spare parts like this one are

the best hope to keep the vintage 747

flying for many years to come.

In the air over Central California,

SOFIA's flight crew is still working out the bugs

with her new avionics.

She's taking a steep turn to the left.

They were rolling into the turn now.

No, wait, that's big for a big airplane to a 45 degrees bay.

Drop off our chase, and we'll turn back

around and come back to you.

NARRATOR: With her new avionics now thoroughly tested,

the F-18 heads back to Edwards Air Force Base,

and SOFIA turns back to Palmdale.

For the approach into runway 25 at Palmdale.

South at 747 heavy render.

NARRATOR: Her landing gear is down and flaps are set.

SOFIA approaches at 140 miles per hour.

50, 40, 30, 20, 15, 10, 5.

NARRATOR: SOFIA is home after her shakedown flight.

Nicely done.

Our 747 heavy.

I'd like to turn off on Juliet.

At 747 heavy, have a good day, sir.

NARRATOR: Crew Chief Steve Robinson

has spent the past year waiting for this moment.

Troy, how's my jet?

Well, it's a pretty good shape.

It was great to be flying again.

Awesome.

Engine-wise and airframe-wise and everything else,

it's good to go.

Great.

And we'll have a few write-ups,

and we're going to have to talk about some of the avionics

stuff in the debrief.

OK.

NARRATOR: But it's not all good news.

Bad part, unfortunately, is that the system

interface with the airplane isn't up what we had expected.

There's some fairly serious problems

that we're going to have to fix before we can go

do science with the airplane.

CDU.

It's probably just--

NARRATOR: The big problem is making

the new avionics system communicate properly

with the old autopilot.

Sometimes, when you're looking at trying to fix some

of these electrical problems, it can take you 10 minutes,

or it can take you 10 weeks.

We just don't know until you get in it,

and start looking, and trying to find out what's wrong.

And you can look and look and look,

and then all of a sudden, bam, you figure

out what it's been doing.

It's just can be really easy or really

difficult to trace it down.

NARRATOR: The scheduled science flights are on hold.

After more than a year of waiting,

SOFIA is still not mission-ready,

not even airworthy.

The world's only flying telescope

called SOFIA has failed her flight test

and isn't ready for space observation missions.

It's a frustrating setback for the team of astronomers

and scientists, who have been waiting a year to see

the 747 back in the skies.

Working on a big project is always a high pressure

operation, even on a good day.

But when you have a problem like the avionics upgrade

that goes on and on, it's--

the pressure only mounts.

It can be pretty hard to work under those conditions.

Stress, pressure?

Absolutely.

To disappoint your international customers

is obviously a pressure that we just

have to force ourselves to not succumb to that, I guess.

- That's where we're at. - OK, good.

Good.

Good.

NARRATOR: SOFIA must undergo more testing

to solve the big problem.

To make her new instruments connect with the autopilot,

her external airspeed probes are hooked up to a machine

that simulates flight.

It blows air into the various probes, which

the aircraft systems convert into airspeed,

altitude, and vertical speed.

They're fooling the airplane to think

it's flying right now.

These tubes on the side of the airplane

here, they're hooked up to an air data test set that we use

to simulate the airplane flying while we're on the ground,

and it tells different information

like airspeed, altitude.

If you don't get it right, when the pilot

goes to pull back on the stick, either have no control

or will have too much control, you know, cause him to crash.

NARRATOR: In the cockpit, the test isn't going well.

Strong desert winds swirl between the two hangars

and move SOFIA's flight controls.

We're going to move it out into the ramp,

and we're going to put the nose of the aircraft into the wind.

So then, the wind will come up underneath the flight

surfaces, and hopefully, it won't flutter as much,

and we can get some of our tuning done.

NARRATOR: SOFIA is towed and positioned

directly into the wind.

The simple plan works.

The flight controls are no longer pounded by wind gusts.

By pointing this into the wind,

we were able to put some pressure

on the bottom of the ailerons in a manner that it was even.

So we didn't have the flutter on one side

and versus the other.

So therefore, we were able to fine tune this aircraft.

Testing it on the ground is actually

way harder than in the air.

NARRATOR: The avionics technicians now

get back to work and troubleshoot the problems

with the autopilot.

I would say we're about 80% done.

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

So another couple of days and be all done?

I'd say another couple of days,

and we'll be ready to say they can put the cockpit

back together and clean it all up

and get ready for test flight.

Sounds good to me.

We've been waiting for that.

NARRATOR: Additional test flights

continue, with a frustrated team of scientists on hold.

I can hardly wait to get the test flights out of the way,

so we can get back to the business of doing astronomy.

NARRATOR: Four more stressful weeks

passed, and finally, it begins to look

like the problem is solved.

The autopilot and the new avionics are now talking.

Sometimes, the most complex problems

have the simplest answer.

Turns out, it was just the digital-to-analog converter.

It was just one simple little box.

As soon as they swapped that out,

everything worked perfectly.

NARRATOR: It's a reminder to everyone

that even the smallest components

are critical on the most specialized 747 in the world.

Before SOFIA's next flight, she gets a good scrub.

Detail specialist Adam Sanchez removes

months of dust and grime.

Spraying SG5.

It's a chemical that actually cleans the plane.

It doesn't affect the paint.

It makes it nice and neat so that the paint doesn't start

chipping or anything bad, and it comes

off really nice and easy.

Cleaning 747, it takes 12 people to clean.

It can take us anywhere from 40 hours to 50 hours,

depending on how dirty the airplane is

and what we're cleaning from the airplane.

It's quite a workout.

It's quite a workout.

I don't need to go to the gym.

My shoulders-- I go home, my shoulders are quite sore.

NARRATOR: A clean airplane also helps with the fuel bill

by reducing air friction.

It improves on the fuel efficiency.

It creates less drags when it's flying,

and it's actually flies faster when it's actually

cleaned than while it's dirty.

NARRATOR: Cleaned and preened, SOFIA is now 24 hours

away from her next flight.

Her most valuable asset, the 34,000 pound telescope

has also undergone an upgrade.

To clear SOFIA for science missions,

it needs to be calibrated and tested in flight.

It's not only a chance for the telescope

to make sure that it's working, but it's

a chance for the telescope operators mission directors

to interact and work with the flight crew

and make sure that we can actually fly a mission.

NARRATOR: Inside SOFIA's cabin, the telescope

is calibrated for its first flight in a year.

Her telescope is equipped with an infrared camera,

specifically designed to capture

images deep in outer space.

To work at optimal performance, it needs to be

cooled with liquid nitrogen.

Basically, what you have in here is a system not

very different from the microchip

that's in your digital camera.

By cooling it, you get extremely better performance.

NARRATOR: The pressurized tanks of liquid nitrogen

are highly explosive.

We have an array of valves and, more

importantly, blow off valves.

That prevents this container from turning into a bomb.

NARRATOR: The minus 320 degree Fahrenheit liquid nitrogen

is added to the camera's cooling system.

Ready?

Yes, ready.

OK, opening valve.

We're done.

You can see the liquid nitrogen and closing the valve.

NARRATOR: The camera and telescope are finally ready.

NASA is about to find out if SOFIA,

her infrared telescope, and new avionics systems

will all work together.

In the pre-mission brief, Chief Pilot Troy Asher

does a full rundown with Ted Dunham

and the rest of the science team.

Basically, three parameters we're going to vary.

And assume you want three minutes at each one of these.

It's an end to end test of everything, all put together,

from the airplane all the way back

to the science instrument.

So you're focused test in the beginning

is, basically, we'll just hold her straight and level.

And you'll do what you need to do

and tell us when you're done.

OK.

And make sure all the systems play together the way they're

supposed to and the data is recorded properly,

so you can make sense of it at the end.

All of that is finally being put together in flight.

NARRATOR: It's 45 minutes to takeoff.

Mission Director Nancy McCowan needs everyone aboard SOFIA

as soon as possible.

Please be out there 15, 20 minutes

before the door closes, so we can help you get set up.

NARRATOR: The crew of 31, which includes telescope operators,

mission planners, and science specialists

are back in business.

Their job is to make aviation and astronomy work together.

Tonight's 10-hour flight will take

SOFIA northeast, from Palmdale, California,

to Rapid City, South Dakota.

There, she will turn west towards Portland Oregon

and out over the Pacific Ocean before turning

back towards San Francisco.

And then her final leg, south, back to Palmdale.

First time all night in about a year, right?

Yeah.

That had been like December of--

NARRATOR: SOFIA is fueled up and on

deck for her first mission in a year.

The airplane is ready to go, and it looks like we're

ready to go fly for the first time,

all night long in over a year, so we're excited.

NARRATOR: The closing doors signals what

they've all been waiting for.

Welcome, everybody, to SOFIA flight 94.

We are the safety test for the evening.

To begin with, all the doors are now secured and armed.

So don't try to open them.

We'll take care of it.

Are there any questions, concerns?

Let's go get some data.

We're set.

Airspeed's alive.

NARRATOR: Chief Pilot Troy Asher applies full power,

and SOFIA accelerates down runway 25.

SOFIA is now airworthy.

The real test will be to see if the pilots, the plane,

and the telescope can work together to provide

a new vision of the cosmos.

NASA's specialized airborne observatory is at 35,000 feet,

traveling at Mach 0.86 and heading northeast,

toward South Dakota.

[radio chatter]

Tonight's mission is to calibrate

and test the telescope's upgraded control system.

Without a fully operational telescope,

there will be no more science flights.

We're basically trying to take some measurements of how

well the telescope is performing, how well we

can see, how well is it tracking,

how well can we do everything.

We're test driving the telescope.

It has a lot of new software.

We'll see how it goes at the end.

NARRATOR: SOFIA is on a 10-hour nighttime mission,

posing a dangerous risk of exhaustion to her crew.

Euphemistically, everybody kind of

calls us the vampire crew members.

We don't want to see daylight.

We only come out at night.

NARRATOR: SOFIA reaches 38,000 feet

and is ready to begin the telescope tests.

Mission to flightdeck flight engineer.

We're ready to open the door anytime you're able to do.

And it should be moving.

For a moment.

NANCY MCKOWN: Maybe even a poor thing is,

we haven't flown in a year.

We're very rusty in terms of what we have to do,

our processes, our procedures.

And so this is a good practice flight for us.

NARRATOR: The observatory door opens, and the telescope

can soon start tracking stars.

OK, it looks-- it appears that the door

is all the way open, Tom.

So you'll see the aperture going to 35,

which is where I set it.

The door's open.

We're good to go.

NARRATOR: With SOFIA on course and on target,

the telescope operators get busy locking onto stars.

Her unique telescope was designed and built in Germany

and is operated by the German Space Agency.

Holger Jacob monitors the telescope's performance.

The telescope is pointing on an object right now.

And this is actually a star, and we

are using this camera to keep the telescope

stabilized on this object.

NARRATOR: SOFIA is flying at Mach 0.86, 14%

below the speed of sound.

For science flight planner, Ken Bauer,

that speed makes it a challenge to track stars.

Our job is to take a set of targets which the science

community has rated as very valuable

to be observed by observatory.

Not only do we have to worry about the star

that we want to look at being up and visible

and the sun being down and the moon not being in the way.

But in order to point at it, the plane has to point

in a certain direction.

Mission to flight deck.

Can you give me a one-degree right turn?

Yeah, there's a lot of things to monitor

that I have to monitor very continuously,

things that change.

And I'm always having to ask the pilots to change heading.

Some tests are more intense than others.

NARRATOR: On the flight deck, the new instruments

seem to be working.

But that doesn't make tracking targets in space

easier in a 747, flying just below the speed of sound.

We're really trying to navigate in relation

to something that's in deep space

and has nothing to do with the surface of our Earth.

There's timing issues with rotating

universe and all of that.

If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time,

the telescope doesn't know where to look.

You know, everything gets messed up.

NARRATOR: And now, there is a new problem--

high altitude turbulence that affects the telescope's

precise stabilizers.

The telescope itself is resting on air springs,

and these air springs are damping the vibrations

from the aircraft.

We use gyroscope sensors that guide

the telescope exactly into the direction

we want it to look at.

We're starting to pick up some continuous choppers

and more of the same up ahead.

NARRATOR: Now over the Colorado Rockies,

SOFIA runs into increased turbulence

that puts the telescope's stabilizers to the test.

We got a pretty much continuous moderate chop

right now, so we're having a little trouble

getting things done.

There is going to be some more bumps up ahead.

It looks like, if this map is right we're looking at.

OK.

OK.

OK.

NARRATOR: It looks like the telescope is moving,

but it's actually the aircraft itself that's

moving around the telescope.

It would have been nice to do this test in smooth air,

but, oh, well. - Would have been.

NARRATOR: After 30 minutes the worst of the turbulence

has passed, allowing the science

crew to get back to work.

The yoke and the controls do jitter quite a bit.

We were a little bit worried about it.

It was causing the whole airplane to move around,

enough that the telescope probably

wouldn't have been able to focus on some of its objects.

NARRATOR: Despite the bumpy ride,

Troy hopes the scientists got the results they needed.

Did you get your focus part, too,

or did you miss that part?

Yeah, the turbulence knocked everything off.

I guess if you go back and look at the data,

and it's really important, maybe we do it again.

I've never experienced turbulence that heavy on

SOFIA before.

The telescope's vibration isolation

system was working harder than I've

ever seen it have to work.

And in fact, the telescope wasn't

even operable for a while.

NARRATOR: Turbulence is one problem.

Restricted airspace poses another.

Right now, we're offshore, off the shore of Oregon.

And we're observing a target.

And one of the challenges of being a science flight planner

is that there are a lot of things we

can't fly over or fly through.

There are a variety of different restricted spaces.

You can see over here, a couple of orange areas.

Those are coastal warning areas.

Commonly, those will be used for military flight planning.

It is preferred that we not go there.

And delaying by just a minute or two to move around them

could cost us a lot of valuable science data.

NARRATOR: It's five hours into the 10-hour flight,

and crew fatigue is starting to set in.

I don't know when the last time was that

you pulled an all-nighter.

But for me, it was college and the occasional night flight.

But primarily, this airplane will

be flown exclusively at night.

What I do personally is I sleep

shift on a fairly quick basis.

I can stay awake fairly well.

And I like coffee.

NARRATOR: But there's no time to rest.

The telescope and its computer control systems

are no longer responding to commands.

We just recently had a crash of the computer system

that runs the telescope and runs

the whole airplane system, the mission control

and communications system.

Do we need to reboot DAS or just put some tape?

NARRATOR: If the telescope doesn't come back online,

the expensive year-long overhaul

will suffer a critical setback, and science will,

once again, have to wait.

OK, we're ready for you to reboot.

NARRATOR: On board computers reboot its control system.

And if that doesn't make it fully functional,

they'll have to cancel the mission and return to base.

Mission to flight deck, can you

tell me what the status is?

Actually, right after our conversation,

it pretty much smoothed out.

Copy that.

OK, we're on condition.

Yeah, I like the stress.

I like-- I like the fast pace, you know?

And that you have to think on your feet,

and you have to do something right now.

NARRATOR: It takes 20 minutes of investigation

to discover the root of the problem.

Something fouled up, and we had to reset a whole bunch

of our computers.

It's requiring several minutes for us to close the door,

reposition the telescope, shut down several computers,

restart the master network, and then restart

several different systems.

We're starting to remember, oh, yeah,

this is what we need to do, and this is how you do it.

And everything's starting to gel.

So it's good.

NARRATOR: They've been in the air for eight grueling hours,

with two more to go.

As far as our position goes, we've now

made it around our circuit.

We're out over the Pacific Ocean,

probably about, oh, I'd say 300 miles west

of, say, Big Sur, California.

NARRATOR: After months of setbacks, the flying telescope

finally works perfectly.

We had pretty good success with it.

All the kind of work that infrared astronomers do

is fundamentally based on this capability.

So it's really important that we were

able to show that this works.

I think that went really well.

At least, we finished the test, which was--

it's difficult to do, and we finished it.

And we have new functions, new functionality with it

than we did a year ago.

NARRATOR: Telescope Software Engineer Holger

Jacob is equally pleased.

Today was very successful.

The telescope, so far, really behaved flawless.

I'm proud here to work here on this project.

NARRATOR: On the flight deck, Chief Pilot Troy Asher

brings SOFIA back to Earth.

Well, we're about 20 minutes out now.

I'm loading in the approach, coming back into Palmdale.

[radio chatter]

50, 40, 30, 20, 10.

NARRATOR: It's 5:00 AM, and the sleep-deprived crew

is ready for bed, relieved to have this test behind them.

It went great.

I think it's successful.

We got everything.

SOFIA's back in business.

We're ready-- we're ready to do some good science

here the rest of the year.

NARRATOR: It takes hard work and dedication

on the part of the ground crew, air crew, and scientists

to allow SOFIA to do her job.

SOFIA is the largest movable telescope in the world.

We can go places and see things that other telescopes

can't do.

There's only one SOFIA, and there's

basically only one aircraft that does something like this.

We get to launch SOFIA 120 times a year.

And if we don't like what happened,

we can change something and launch it again.

It's just a lot of pride to be part of something this big

and this important right now. it's

kind of amazing and humbling all at the same time.

Great.

Very good.

We're back in business, boys.

All right.

NARRATOR: SOFIA's long and challenging upgrade finally

puts her back in the skies.

She'll be flying space observation missions

for many years to come.

With her dedicated team, this 747 SP will help unravel

the mysteries of the universe.