Tuesday, August 25, 2015

NASA: Cracks found in SOFIA aircraft engines

NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in California has a requirement for repair of two Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7 engines which have been removed from the aircraft and preserved with Mobil AVREX M-Turbo gas turbine lubricant. 

Located at AFRC, the engines (serial number P662676 and P662412) were removed from NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) aircraft (tail number N747NA) in August 2014. The engines currently have turbine exhaust case cracks.
SOFIA is the largest airborne observatory in the world, capable of making observations that are impossible for even the largest and highest ground-based telescopes.

SOFIA is an 80/20 partnership of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, consisting of an extensively modified Boeing 747SP aircraft carrying a reflecting telescope with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters (100 inches).

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