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I attended the open house and dedication of the new Dryden Aircraft Operation Facility (DAOF), NASA Dryden's expansion to a facility in Palmdale. The huge hangar was originally built by Northrup Grumman for B-2 bomber assembly. It was also used as the movie set for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End". Then NASA Dryden began converting the hangar into DAOF. The hangar now contains SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy), the airborne telescope built on a Boeing 747SP. The hangar also contained a NASA DC-8, one of the two Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) and several other smaller NASA aircraft.
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