NASA's 2012 Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel, or HS3, mission came to an end Nov. 6 when a NASA unmanned Global Hawk aircraft flew a final data-collection mission in the North Pacific Ocean over a large storm in preparation for next year's campaign.
The primary activity of the 2012 HS3 mission included a NASA Global Hawk aircraft that flew from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., in September to investigate the environment and cloud structure of hurricanes Leslie and Nadine in the Atlantic Ocean with more than 148 hours flown over six science flights. A second Global Hawk equipped to examine hurricane precipitation and wind structure was unable to deploy to Wallops before the end of the hurricane campaign, but successfully completed its maiden science research voyage in the Pacific flight.
The Global Hawk departed from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Nov. 5 and flew along the Pacific Coast to as far north as Washington state. The aircraft flew over four Pacific Ocean buoys and a low pressure system south of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. The 24.2-hour flight allowed for testing of several instruments that will be flown during the 2013 HS3 campaign. All three instruments operated well and collected good data.
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