Nichelle Nichols has played a space explorer for 50 years as Lt. Uhura on Star Trek, but today, she'll go up on a real NASA mission. She'll just be a few dozen miles short of space, and a few light years short of the Enterprise's typical mission.

Nichols is flying up on NASA's SOFIA observatory. The specially outfitted Boeing 747 carries the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy instrumentation, which makes observations in infrared of planetary atmospheres, distant supernova, comets, and other objects not always easy to see from the ground in the visible spectrum. By flying into the stratosphere, the plane is above interference from water vapor.

Nichols will be one of the first non-essential personnel to fly on the plane. She'll be fielding questions from Twitter users alongside SOFIA personnel. The SOFIA team will make observations of star forming regions on its flight tomorrow, as well as observing a protostar in the Constellation Taurus. To follow along on the 10 hour flight, check out SOFIA or Nichol's Twitter accounts. The flight is set for an 8 p.m. PST departure from California, flying over Nevada, Colorado, and other states, crossing over into Alberta air space, then returning to Southern California.

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