On board a NASA observatory: Olchingerin on the mission of her life
Created: 07/09/2022, 08:08
By: Ulrike Osman
Group photo in front of a unique aircraft: Dagmar Ludwig (centre) was allowed to fly with other teachers.
© Florian Behrens (DSI)
Very close to the stars: The Olching teacher Dagmar Ludwig is one of the few people who was allowed to look deep into space from a NASA flying observatory.
With this experience, she wants to get her students interested in science.
Olching - Anticipation is said to be the greatest joy - but it can also be quite long.
Dagmar Ludwig, a maths and physics teacher at Olching High School, had more than two years to look forward to flying on a NASA research aircraft.
After the original date in March 2020 had burst due to Corona, she had to tremble for a long time as to whether the trip with the flying observatory would still work out at all.
A few weeks ago the time had actually come – and it turned out to be as gigantic as Dagmar Ludwig had hoped.
The 53-year-old had already applied in 2019 to take part in a joint program run by the German Aerospace Institute (DLR) and NASA.
She and four other teachers from all over Germany were allowed to fly in the "Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy" (SOFIA) and look into space together with scientists at an altitude of 14,000 meters.
The idea behind it: The teachers should incorporate the flight experience into the lessons in order to interest more children and young people in natural sciences.
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Based on Dagmar Ludwig's contagious enthusiasm, many young researchers will soon emerge from her classes.
It grabs you as a listener when she talks about how electrified she sat in the briefing before the start.
As she realized, you're not going on any flight, you're part of a NASA mission.
When she describes how friendly she and her colleagues were looked after, but she had to delete a photo immediately – a secret aircraft type could be seen in the background.
"Experiencing science up close was fantastic," enthuses Ludwig.
"There were so many sensational individual moments."
asteroids examined
She boarded SOFIA twice in Palmdale near Los Angeles.
For two nights she was able to watch the scientists collect data from space with the infrared telescope.
"We looked at the center of the Milky Way, which has not yet been fully mapped." Asteroids were also examined for evidence of water.
The employee operating the telescope was a novice.
Fascinated, Dagmar Ludwig listened through her headphones as each step of the measurements was explained to him.
On a separate teacher's console, she and her colleagues saw what the telescope was recording.
She learned that the device had to be realigned at the slightest course deviation.
Experienced in the cockpit how nervously the crew made sure not to get too close to Mexican airspace.
Since the infrared telescope must not be exposed to a single ray of sunlight, SOFIA had to be safely parked in the hangar again by five o'clock in the morning.
On the day between the two exhausting flights, Dagmar Ludwig lay in her hotel room, the curtains of which she had closed with clothespins, and tried to sleep.
At home, meanwhile, her father was celebrating his 80th birthday and one of her sons was graduating from high school.
But Dagmar Ludwig would not have missed this trip for anything in the world.
She has already talked a lot about her adventure in her classes, and a larger evening event for the whole school is planned.
She is aware that she was very lucky – because it is possible that her flight was the last one.
NASA has announced that the SOFIA program will be terminated in September.
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You can find more current news from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck at Merkur.de/Fürstenfeldbruck.