Article updated: 1/30/2014 6:05 PM

This April 20, 2010 photo shows the bay of a modified Boeing 747SP jetliner containing the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope at a NASA Dryden Flight Research Center test facility in Palmdale, Calif. Two Northwest suburban woman have been selected to participate in the program as airborne astronomy ambassadors.

Associated Press file photo

Marcella Linahan

Lynne Zielinski

Going where few have gone before, two Northwest suburban women will spend a week working with NASA on scientific missions this spring.

Mundelein's Marcella Linahan and Long Grove's Lynne Zielinski will participate in the space agency's Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program. They'll comprise one of 12 two-person teams from 10 states.

After training in California, they'll fly high-altitude missions on NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. Called SOFIA for short, it's a modified Boeing 747 jet that's equipped with a large telescope to study objects in space that are visible in infrared light.

The program is scheduled for April and will last one week.

"Excited" doesn't begin to describe how Linahan and Zielinski feel about the opportunity.

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Two suburban women to work with NASA on astronomy program