NASA Will Study Hurricanes using Drones

The U.S. space agency NASA will help scientists who study weather patterns and predictive, in the completion of a knowledge base about hurricanes. NASA experts have begun to deploy the appropriate special programs, an idea which is to launch several unmanned aircraft equipped with the necessary equipment for the study of hurricanes.

Drones, called the “Global Hawk”, will circle over the entire Atlantic basin, because, as you know, hurricanes are formed just above the water surface and then begin your way to the land.

Cars Global Hawk, wrote a web resource to the press service of the NASA, it is best suited for monitoring hurricanes – they are capable of flying at an altitude of more than18 kilometersAnd the duration of their flight up to 28 hours. Controlled from the ground, they eliminate any risk to the pilot and crew, with the inevitable contact with the plane normal to the zone of the weather. Yes, and manned aircraft can not be at such a high altitude for such a long time.

The data obtained drones, will help scientists understand the hurricanes and find out all the minute details of their formation. Experts want to establish a link between clouds, winds and ocean storms and hurricanes that are so often attacked by many coastal countries. In addition, the program will provide NASA scientists with enough information to predict the occurrence of hurricanes and more accurate calculation of their trajectories.

NASA researcher Scott Brown reports that the drones will be useful in the study of tropical storms, in particular the impact on the education of their hot and dusty desert air. For all this, really need advanced equipment already purchased and mounted on the aircraft. Initially, researchers will be allocated two drones, to the maximum manned weather equipment, but NASA does not preclude the development of the program and increase the number of machines. Exact timing of the start of drones has not reported, but according to unofficial data, regular flights will begin next year.

In this program invested a lot of money: some of them went to the purchase of equipment for aircraft, and another part was required for the purchase of own aircraft.Each Global Hawk costs $ 140 million, and the hour of his flight, estimated at $ 31,000.

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Posted by Paracha on June 5, 2012. Filed under Innovation, News, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry