According to the RFI posted Tuesday on FedBizOpp, the agency wants interested partners to arrange flights on the airborne astronomical observatory.
Questions and responses are due May 1 to Paul Hertz, director of the astrophysics division of NASA’s science mission directorate.
Flights on SOFIA, a joint program of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, cost an estimated $1 million per night.
SOFIA is a modified Boeing 747SP fitted with a far-infrared telescope and has features not available to space- and ground-based telescopes, the RFI says.
NASA’s Ames Research Center, the Universities Space Research Association and the Deutsches SOFIA Institut manage SOFIA’s science and mission operations.