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NASA Turns to Global Hawk for Hurricane Missions

NASA began using a Global Hawk unmanned aircraft for the study of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. The first of two of the planes for the hurricane mission flew from Edwards Air Force Base on Sept. 6, spent 10 hours collecting data on Hurricane Leslie, and landed Sept. 7 at a NASA facility on Wallops Island, Va. A second Global Hawk will arrive at Wallops Island later in the month. Together, the aircraft will study winds, temperature, water vapor, precipitation and aerosols from the surface to the lower stratosphere. Northrop Grumman Corp. assembles the Global Hawk at its facility in Palmdale. Both planes are carrying the High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), an instrument developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada-Flintridge that uses microwave wavelengths to measure temperature, water vapor and precipitation from the top of the storm to the surface. “(This instrument) provides a much more detailed view of the atmospheric conditions in a hurricane than is possible from satellites,” said Bjorn Lambrigtsen, HAMSR principal investigator at JPL, in a prepared statement. Mark R. Madler

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