Global Hawks Arrive At Wallops

Global Hawk/NASA

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. The first of two NASA Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles supporting the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel mission has arrived at Wallops Flight Facility. During August and September, NASA will fly the two Global Hawks over the Atlantic Ocean to study tropical storms and the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensification. The aircraft are equipped with instruments to survey the overall environment of the storms and peer into the inner core of hurricanes to study their structure and processes.

The range of the global hawk aircraft is far greater than manned hurricane hunter aircraft and can provide valuable data on storms forming near the Cape Verde Islands off of Africa. This data gives the National Hurricane information on the stage of development of these storms.

The Global Hawk aircraft are based at Edwards Air Force Base in California but travel to Wallops during hurricane season to watch developing storms in the Atlantic.

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