NASA's Global Hawk Hurricane Mission Kicks Off

An unmanned NASA Global Hawk aircraft comes in for a landing at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., Sept. 7, kicking off the month-long Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission. HS3 will help researchers and forecasters uncover information about how hurricances and tropical storms form and intensify. The Global Hawk spent 10 hours collecting data on Hurricane Leslie in the Atlantic Ocean on its day-long trip to Wallops from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Image credit: NASA