NASA is upping its efforts in the area of hurricane research. Two unmanned Global Hawk aircrafts will soon be flying over the water for this year's Atlantic hurricane season.

In order to further advance our understanding of hurricanes, NASA is upping its efforts in the area of hurricane research.

Two unmanned Global Hawk aircrafts will soon be flying over the water for this year's Atlantic hurricane season. The newest mission is part of the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3 mission.

Since the NASA Global Hawks will not have a pilot onboard, they will be controlled remotely from the HS3 mission control at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. The Global Hawks are the perfect crafts to probe the inner workings of hurricanes because they can fly for over 25 hours straight at altitudes above 55 thousand feet.

One aircraft will be responsible for recording precipitation, wind, temperature and humidity in the inner region of the storm, while the other one will carry different equipment to examine the environment directly outside the hurricane.


NASA described the goal of the expedition noting “HS3 is a collaborative effort that brings together several NASA centers with federal and university partners to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin.”