NASA’s Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel, or HS3, mission investigated tropical cyclones in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Atlantic Basin hurricane seasons. Highlights of the mission can be seen in a new video.
The six minute and 51 second video was created from footage during the course of the three year mission. It was created by the National Suborbital Education and Research Center, University of North Dakota.
Credits: NASA/Wallops/NOAA
It featured NASA’s Global Hawk, a remotely piloted aircraft, and the manned WB-57 aircraft. The mission had flown more than 600 hours, with 21 flights over 9 named storms. The instruments aboard the Global Hawk measured vertical profiles of cloud structure, pressure, temperature, winds, humidity, and rainfall.
The HS3 mission was funded by NASA Headquarters and overseen by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
The HS3 mission was led by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and also involved collaborations with partners including the National Center for Atmospheric Research; State University of New York at Albany; University of Maryland – Baltimore County; University of Wisconsin; University of Utah; Naval Postgraduate School; Naval Research Laboratory; NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and Unmanned Aircraft System Program; and Northrop Grumman Space Technology. The HS3 mission is managed by the Earth Science Project Office at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
The Global Hawk aircraft are maintained and based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The WB-57 is housed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston home of the NASA WB-57 High Altitude Research Program.
Over the next couple of years, scientists will comb through the data to uncover the secrets behind the data gathered during these missions.
For more information about NASA’s HS3 mission, visit:
For more information about NASA’s Hurricane Webpage, visit: