at NASA- Armstrong Flight Research Center. On December 18, 2009, the SOFIA aircraft performed the first test flight in which the telescope door was fully opened. This phase lasted for two minutes of the 79-minute flight. SOFIA's telescope saw first light on May 26, 2010, returning images showing M82's core and heat from Jupiter's formation escaping through its cloud cover. Initial "routine" science observation flights began in December 2010 and the observatory was slated for full capability by 2014 with about 100 flights per year. Since 2011, SOFIA missions were chosen amongst several proposals. Successful missions were scheduled according to yearly cycles, with the first cycle corresponding to 2013. During each cycle, the aircraft and instruments were shared between a few different missions. The astrophysics decadal survey for the 2020's recommended that NASA end SOFIA operations by 2023. “The survey committee has significant concerns about SOFIA, given its high cost and modest scientific productivity,” the report stated. Scientific research and observations The primary science objectives of SOFIA were to study the composition of planetary atmospheres and surfaces; to investigate the structure, evolution and composition of comets; to determine the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium; and to explore the formation of stars and other stellar objects. While SOFIA aircraft operations were managed by NASA Dryden, NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, is home to the SOFIA Science Center which will manage mission planning for the program. On 29 June 2015, the dwarf planet Pluto passed between a distant star and the Earth producing a shadow on the Earth near New Zealand that allowed SOFIA to study the atmosphere of Pluto. In early 2016, SOFIA detected atomic oxygen in the Atmosphere of Mars for the first time in 40 years. In early 2017, its observations of 1 Ceres in the mid-infrared helped determine the large asteroid/dwarf planet was coated with a layer of asteroid dust from other bodies. In July 2017, SOFIA observed a star occultation of the distant Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth while ground based observatories failed this observation, preparing the probe New Horizons visiting this asteroid. Sofia has been used also for Astrobiology missions, focusing amongst other goals on the observation of new planetary systems and the detection of complex molecules. In October 2020, astronomers reported detecting molecular water on the sunlit surface of the moon by several independent spacecraft, including the Stratospheric Observatory for