Kuiper Airborne Observatory
(KAO)
(infrared observatory-plane in the 1980s)
Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) was an aircraft-mounted
36-inch infrared reflector telescope in operation
from 1974 through 1995. The aircraft was a modified
Lockheed C141-A Starlifter.
It replaced the earlier Galileo Observatory
(Convair 990 that crashed)
and was replaced afterward by
SOFIA, a Boeing 747.
KAO discovered among other things, the rings
of Uranus and identified Pluto's atmosphere.
(telescope,infrared,airborne,past,NASA)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_Airborne_Observatory
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/kao/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kuiper-Airborne-Observatory
https://cosmic.lbl.gov/SKliewer/Experiment/KAO.htm
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1983PASP...95..325D/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989PASP..101..737E/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1990LIACo..29...21H/abstract
https://history.arc.nasa.gov/hist_pdfs/nasasp2013-216025.pdf
Referenced by page:
Galileo Observatory
Index