NASA sends drones to track hurricanes' secrets
- September 15, 2013, 3:38 pm
- Weather News
- 124 Views
WALLOPS ISLAND, United States, Sept 15, (APP/AFP) - A
pair of converted military drones are the US space agency's newest tools for tracking hurricanes and tropical storms, with the aim of improving forecasters' ability to predict them.
Originally built for military reconnaissance missions around the world, they are the size of large commercial jets and are flown remotely from a NASA base on the Virginia coast.
The drones are capable of flying for 30 hours at an altitude of 21,000 meters (69,000 feet), or twice the height of a passenger plane.
They can also cover large swaths of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in a single mission, according to Chris Naftel, head of the drone project at NASA's Dryden center in California, the secondary drone base.
The two Global Hawks began operating as NASA drones in 2012, as part of a project that will last for three years. The drones operate in most active months -- August and September -- of the Atlantic hurricane season, which goes from June to the end of November.
