NASA Launches Global Hawk To Study Hurricanes - WMDT 47 News - Delmarva's Choice

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. - NASA is on a mission to learn more about hurricanes. Wednesday, WMDT got a look at an unmanned aircraft, Global Hawk that will fly at least 10,000 feet over the storm.

Lead Missions Scientist, HS3, Scott Brown, said "the key driver here is really trying to understand the underlying science behind the intensification. But in many ways, this is a demonstration of what can be done with these new technologies for hurricane monitoring and eventually forecasting."

The HS3 mission will last five-years. It should give scientists a deeper look at the function of a storm and a peek into the inner core of hurricanes to study their structure. So how does it work?

Brown says "We have a small sensor that gets released from the back of the plane, it's called a dropsan, and it's released, and it floats down on a small parachute. And as it falls, it collects information on temperature, relative humidity, pressure, and winds peed, and wind direction."

The $30-million project was funded through NASA's Earth Venture Program, and after 2 years in the making, the plane took off today at 2:30 PM.