The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3, mission will overflytropical storms and hurricanes using NASA’s Global Hawk UnmannedAircraft Systems (UAS) in the Northern Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf ofMexico. These flights will improve our understanding of the processesthat lead to the development of intense hurricanes. The mission willtake place for one-month periods during the 2012, 2013, and 2014Atlantic Basin hurricane seasons.
HS3 will use two of NASA’sGlobal Hawks, each equipped with state-of-the-art science instruments.One aircraft will monitor the environment around storms to look forconditions favorable for storm formation and intensification. The otheraircraft will repeatedly fly directly over storms to collect data on theinner-core structures that lead to storm intensity change.
TheGlobal Hawk is a robotic plane that can fly to an altitude of 19.8 km(12.3 miles)—roughly twice as high as a commercial airliner—as far as20,278 km (12,600 miles), and for as long as 28 hours. The Global Hawksprovide a new and unique capability for collecting continuous,high-resolution measurements that will be crucial to understandingrapidly evolving processes in hurricanes.
To learn more about HS3, visit: www.NASA.gov/HS3